Alloy
by dasserk
Summary: Definition: a mixture composed of metals. Alloys are used in some applications, as their properties are superior to those of the pure component elements for those applications. Maybe putting Toni Stark into the mix would make them stronger. Or maybe they were a time bomb, and she just set them off. AU - Fem!Tony pairings undecided, rated T for swearing Ch. 9: Uncharacteristic
1. Yinsen

**Just went back to edit a few things I noticed in the chapter that were really pissing me off :)**

**Ch. 1 - Yinsen**

* * *

Fire. She could see fire, but that didn't make any sense. Well, maybe it did—there was some fucking _terrible_ thing scorching in her chest. But she wasn't on fire, right?! As her vision sharpened, so did the pain. She wanted to sleep again but now everything was too real for her to ignore.

The fire wasn't real though; it was the reflection in a man's glasses as he peered at her. She could see through the glasses, into the man's pitying, dark eyes. He knew she was in pain. Why wasn't he helping her?

She tried breathing through her nose but was alarmed by the obstruction—her hand instantly went to her face, and tore at the tubing up her nasal cavity. They did that at hospitals, a nasal… something, when a patient couldn't breath on their own.

But Toni Stark was very, very sure that she wasn't at the hospital.

The man touched her hair, but she couldn't hear what he said. Flinching, Toni tried to sit up but the man pushed lightly at her shoulder, a warning. Her hand was instantly up again, brushing his touch away, but he caught her wrist and guided it elsewhere.

She should've looked at what he was doing, but Toni was too focused on the pitying look in the man's eyes. She was trying to figure out why he was so upset that she didn't pay attention to the bigger picture. Then her hand brushed at metal, at wiring, at gauze—Toni was forced to look down in curiosity because she knew that none of that should be there.

A scream was in her throat, but Toni was too petrified to use it. Instead, her eyes traveled across the wires, finding that her chest was connected to a car battery.

A _car battery_.

"Wha…what the hell did you do to me?" Toni's words were broken and hoarse. Her throat was weak and so very, very sore. She wondered what she'd done to wear out her vocal chords—the memory surged up,_ blood and pain and her own anguished screams begging them to "Just let me fucking die!" _—and then she wished she hadn't remembered.

"What I did?" the man chuckled, but she was too suspicious to consider it good-natured. "What I did was to save your life," the man said lightly, moving away from the unkempt cot she laid on and towards the small fire that he was cooking something over. She simply waited for him to elaborate. "I removed all the shrapnel I could, but there's a lot left, and it's headed into your atrial septum."

Toni sat up cautiously, wrapping her clothes around her tightly and snatching the car battery into her arms. Her head felt light. She brushed a hand through her hair, but there were no knots. They'd cut off most of her hair, until it was brutally short, but manageable. Her jaw clenched, but she made no mention of it.

"Here, want to see?" The man held up a small jar, shaking it. She could see small bits of metal jingling. "I have a souvenir. Take a look," he tossed the jar to Toni.

Her fingers didn't shake, but Toni noticed, with gruesome fascination, that her dried blood was pooled at the bottom of the jar from the shrapnel. She listened, but didn't look at the doctor as he spoke. She wasn't ready for that.

"I've seen many wounds like that in my village," he continued, with an edge to his voice that told Toni he was serious. "We call them the walking dead because it takes about a week for the barbs to reach the vital organs."

Toni clenched her jaw. She wasn't ready to die in a week. She gripped at the car battery, and glanced down at the painful contraption in her chest. "What does this do?" she asked him quietly.

"It's an electromagnet, hooked up to your car battery. It keeps the shrapnel from entering your heart." Toni exhaled, almost laughing, and an incredulous smile broke out on her grim face.

The man raised an eyebrow at her strange reaction, and she shook her head, looking down. "The ingenuity of it," she explained, "in a fucking cave with terrorists." Her little smile twisted bitterly, and she glared at the ground.

Her brown eyes swept the area, and she understood that they were indeed in a cave with no visible exits. Toni knew that she could be anywhere at this point; she had no idea how long she'd been out. There was a very, very slim chance of a rescue.

Toni's eyes traveled up, and focused on a little red dot in the corner of the room. They were monitoring them.

"That's right," the man confirmed, his tone oddly cheerful, "Smile." She wondered how long he must have been in captivity for this man to seem so indifferent. "We met once, you know. At a technical conference in Bern."

She pulled her eyes away from the camera, and frowned at the man. Bern. She didn't like that conference, and she couldn't even remember it beyond a college student named Allan that she did _not_ sleep with. "I don't remember you."

He looked up, slightly amused. "No, you wouldn't," he agreed, "If I had been that drunk, I wouldn't have been able to stand, much less give a lecture on integrated circuits." Toni nodded vacantly. She didn't really want to think about that right now, because she could already feel the regret setting in.

_I'm going to fucking die in a cave, _she though bitterly. There was no way to change what she'd already ruined.

"Where are we?" asked Toni, hoping to focus on their situation, however bad it was.

There were shouts of Arabic coming from behind the metal doors, and Toni quickly got off the cot, setting the car battery down on it. The man stood up as well, and hissed, "Put up your hands!"

The bolts on the door clicked, and Toni held up her hands as a dozen men flooded in, all holding similar weapons. Confusion hit her, then the fear. "Those are my guns. How did they get my guns?" she hissed back to the man, trying to stop herself from babbling. She had an awful feeling she knew exactly how they got those guns.

More soldiers were entering, and the man simply ignored her question. "Do you understand me? Do as I do!" he begged her, and Toni literally bit her tongue. She had a habit of trying to talk herself out of difficult situations.

A man walked towards her, speaking Arabic. Toni knew a lot, but she never learned Arabic. He gestured towards her fellow captive, and he repeated what the leader said, in English. "He says, 'Welcome Antonia Stark, the most famous mass-murderer in the history of America.'"

Toni only watched the man, expressionless, as he continued. "He is honored," her doctor translated. "He wanted you to build the missile—the Jericho missile you demonstrated earlier." The leader held up a picture for her to see, but Toni knew what he wanted as soon as she made out the word 'Jericho' in the midst of the leader's Arabic speech.

She answered before she really considered what she was saying. "I refuse."

* * *

Her throat burned, even though the water was cold. She gasped for air but her head was quickly forced into the water once more. Toni couldn't stop the screams. She choked up water when they pulled her out for a few seconds, and the whole process repeated.

It couldn't have been longer than five minutes, but when you were drowning over and over again, it felt like hours. They pulled her away from the water eventually; her short hair plastered to her face, then roughly yanked a burlap sack over her head.

She didn't want to think about what they did, or what they were going to do, so she instead focused on the direction they pulled her in; the gravel on the ground; the slight change in temperature as they headed into the sunlight of Afghanistan, outside of the cave.

Toni had been in the dark for so long. The sun was blinding until her face warmed and then it was blinding _and_ burning. They were showing her the camp, and more importantly, all of the equipment they had with the Stark Industries logo printed on them. In the back of her mind, Toni recognized that there was no way they'd simply stolen this—the sheer magnitude of their supplies told a different story.

She hadn't even realized she had the car battery in he hands until she was shoved forward roughly, and nearly dropped it. The leader—or rather, the person who'd been speaking to her earlier, because she doubted he was the actual leader—beckoned to her. The doctor translated when she was close.

"He wants to know what you think," the man explained. Toni tried to remain indifferent, but there was still a bitter tone to her voice.

"I think you've got a lot of my weapons," she grounded out, her jaw clenched once more.

"He says they have everything you need to build the Jericho missile." The man told her, and Toni didn't answer. "He wants you to make a list of materials, to start working immediately, and when you're done, he will set you free."

A sense of calm washed over her, but it wasn't from the though of being able to leave. She wasn't stupid. Toni was a mechanic, an engineer—she was a fucking genius. And she smiled hopefully at the man. She even shook his hand when he offered it.

"No he won't," Toni told the translator, maintaining the same light tone he'd used earlier with her. She could see why he used it now.

"No, he won't," the man agreed.

The enthusiasm wasn't because Toni thought she would be freed soon. It was because, as an engineer with as much supplies as she wanted, Toni wasn't going to be helpless anymore. She wasn't in Malibu, she didn't have JARVIS or her equipment, but she had her hands, her head, and a heart with an expiration date.

And Toni would be damned if she let herself die just because she was expected to.

Or, she would be damned if she didn't manage to do some good before her bad heart did her in.


	2. Clint

**Ok, I really want a fem!Tony Stark story, not just one-shots. I've seen a few, but I thought it was time to put my ow spin on this AU.**

**So this is for my own amusement. Some chapters will be absurdly long, others will be disappointingly short. Deal with it!**

**Enter: Natasha Antonia "Toni" Stark...**

****A/N: edited this chapter a bit for clarity :) Enjoy!**

**Ch. 2 - Clint**

* * *

Toni had been working for Stark Industries ever since she graduated from MIT at 19, though she only became head of the company when she turned 21. Even then, she mostly let Obadiah Stane handle the business; she was more interested in building things than selling them.

Even though she wasn't the face of the company for some time, Toni gained a reputation for being… wild. She would never deny being a thrill-seeker, but the media played it up, and adding to the growing suspicions that her company was dealing under the table, it was easy for people to hate the heiress. Toni never cared, of course; she was only a little indignant when they accused her of not being the actual creator of most of Stark Industries' designs and weapons.

That stung. Toni wasn't some bimbo, she was a genius, and a sexy twenty-three year old who'd boosted her company tenfold over the course of four years as CEO.

But this was _before_ her time in captivity.

In the first press conference Toni attended—and arranged on her own—after coming back from the dead, she was asked about what had transpired.

"I had my eyes opened," she had said. And then, Toni went on to announce the shut down ("effective immediately") of the weapons manufacturing department of SI.

What a fucking _lie_.

You see, Toni didn't _really_ have her eyes opened until a few weeks after that initial conference. She continued working on that damn suit, because it had been in her mind for the past three months, and in Malibu, she had the means of putting those ideas to the test.

She saw the bad things that her previous creations had done—the weapons in the Middle East—and Toni was happy to use her newest weapon of mass destruction to destroy her other weapons of mass destruction. For some reason, it never occurred to her that fighting fire with fire would just give you a bigger fire.

Toni was foolish enough to think that if she kept her inventions close, then she could stop the bad guys and be a hero.

But then there was Obadiah Stane—Obie, her ally—who'd turned on her. Who'd _stolen _her designs and her arc reactor because he didn't care about her, never cared about her, and left her to die because the group of terrorists he hired hadn't done their job.

And _then_, Toni had her eyes opened. And she called another press conference.

**… press conference # 2 ...**

She could see that bitch, Christine Everhart, in the first row. Toni had been wasted when she decided to do that piece for Vanity Fair, and she regretted ever speaking to Little Miss _Brown_.

She laughed, strangely nervous. Obie was dead, the Iron Monger destroyed, but last night had shaken Toni to the core. "It's been a while since I've been in front of you," she admitted, addressing the reporters at large. "I figured I'd stick to the cards this time," she held up the cards briefly, calmly waiting for the scattered chuckles to stop.

"There's been speculation that I've been involved in the events that occurred on the freeway, and the rooftop—"

"I'm sorry Ms. Stark," the blonde bitch interrupted Toni Stark. She made a mental reminder to never speak with Vanity Fair ever again. "But do you _honestly_ expect us to believe that that was a body guard in a suit, that _conveniently _appeared, despite…"

Oh. That's what they thought? Toni glanced at her palm cards. Amused, she realized just how perfectly Blondie's story matched up with Coulson's story… but that bitch was still a bitch. Was is really such a bad thing for Toni to consider taking off her fancy, heavy Rolex, and chucking it at Everhart's head? She didn't let herself answer that question.

"I know that it's confusing," Toni nodded, with an appearance of empathy towards the blonde woman, "but there's not much to say. The man responsible to last night's events—as the media has dubbed him, 'Iron Man'—is someone _I_ trust completely. And in return, _he_ trusts me not to reveal his identity to the public."

She wanted to pause to collect her thoughts but the reporters were going to have a field day so—"But the suit belongs to me and it's not for sale and that is all."

Toni quite literally sprinted away from the frenzied reporters, blocking out their inane chatterings as she dragged Rhodey with her for protection.

**… Six months later ...**

Toni had just breezed past the office desk in her Malibu home, like she'd always done. She never used the office anyway, but Pepper did. But now she realized that it hadn't been Pepper sitting at the desk and she slowly backtracked until the desk was in her line of sight again.

A young man sat at the desk, organizing papers and digital files on the computer. He was dressed impeccably, like Pepper always was and Toni never was, and seemed wholly focused on his work (also like Pepper, not like Toni).

Toni cleared her throat, and was answered with alert grey-blue eyes and an apt look of polite surprise. Familiar face. Why?

"Ms. Stark," he stood, not quite forgetting about his work but setting it aside to address her respectfully. "Ms. Potts said I'd be meeting you soon." He held out a hand, and Toni didn't shake it.

"Name?"

The man knew how to keep up, that was for sure. He retracted his hand smoothly, and said, "Clyde Bates. I'm your new PA."

Oh. Right. Toni nodded swiftly. She had pointed to his resume among a group of twenty applications—the twenty that Pepper had seen fit to propose to Toni. Pepper was the new face of Stark Industries—the acting CEO as of two days ago.

"Pepper works fast. I only picked you a day ago," Toni commented. She beckoned him forward, resisting the urged to snap her fingers like she did to get DUM-E's attention. She'd done that to Pepper once and the response had been _legendary_.

"So—what've you got for me?"

And Clyde started immediately, explaining how her day had been planned out and the upcoming events she needed to prepare or pay for, and a plethora of other stuff that Pepper used to tell her about.

_Did… is he… Is this guy for real? _Toni thought to herself, watching Clyde while he listed out her responsibilities for the day. She took a second to analyze him wordlessly.

Short, dark blonde hair. Like a buzz-cut that had grown out a little. His suit was new—not just clean, but new—and was a generically-expensive brand that Toni didn't care to remember. Fitted, but conservative enough that Toni couldn't tell how fit he was.

No—scratch that, Toni quickened her pace and Clyde adjusted his walk accordingly without looking up and without losing his breath. It didn't distract him, or alter the pace of his words. If she'd done that to Pepper, there'd be a sign of Pepper's breath change, even though Pepper was perfectly fit.

Ergo, he was much more in shape than a _personal assistant_ had any reason to be.

Scar on his neck. Thin line from a sharp blade or a simple accident? Calloused hands—calloused fingers, actually—from working with guns. Negative—his background check said he was from Nebraska; the hands could be the results of manual labor. There were farms in Nebraska, right? _Nebraskan lifestyles are irrelevant_, Toni decided, and she moved on.

Veering into the kitchen, Toni halted in front of the fridge and yanked it open in one swift movement. Clyde skidded to a stop easily, able to stop himself before stumbling into the door. His stance—feet apart and steady, before he shifted them into a more casual position. His back was ramrod straight—military? —before he backed up and leaned onto the counter.

He was hard for Toni to read. Was she just imagining his mannerisms, or was he good enough to hide them? She could always delve farther into his background, but technically, he gave Toni no reason to do so.

Toni grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge, and took a swig as she hopped onto the counter next to Clyde—uncomfortably close for both of them, but serving a greater purpose in Toni's mind.

Clyde looked up from his StarkPad and met Toni's brown eyes. He offered a cool, professional smile, stopped leaning on the counter, and took a small, polite step away from Toni. Pepper was the most professional person Toni knew, but Clyde—handpicked by Pepper—was a close second.

Hm. Toni was feeling nostalgic now, remembering what Pepper had been like as her first permanent assistant. Pepper had been a great, but she'd deserved better.

A tendril of heat snaked into way through Toni's chest, reminding her why she'd asked Pepper to become her successor. When Pepper had asked—_"You're twenty-four, Toni, why would you resign?"—_Toni had explained that she was an inventor, not a businesswoman, and Pepper knew the ins and outs of the company better than Toni did.

Toni had plans. She had a strong idea of where she wanted her company to go, and she had intended to see it through. She could've been CEO, she could've done it all by herself, but now she couldn't.

Her heart ached, and briefly, Toni wondered what kind of pain a broken heart caused, because she'd never loved and lost someone to feel it for herself. The ache in her heart right now was real, physical, and a reminder of the poisonous contraption keeping her alive.

"Well, I'll meet up with you on the private plane to Monaco in two hours, then," Toni told Clyde distractedly, running through what he'd told her and remembering that the race in Monaco was tomorrow. "You can call Happy, he'll give you a lift."

With that, Toni escaped to her basement lab to replace her reactor. Again.

The palladium core was leaking into her body. For the past three months, Toni had been looking for a solution, but it was useless, and she hadn't been able to pursue her energy plans for SI.

Now, she planned for Pepper to go through with the plans—to make sure the project was funded and research thoroughly like it should be—and Toni could… well, she couldn't fix herself, and she didn't have enough time to do the arc reactor research on her own, so she wasn't sure _what_ she could do anymore.

In the back of her mind, she saw a face. A familiar, memorable face.

Yinsen.

She could remember what he told her, after she had felt worthless, knowing that she had a week to live. Damn it, she wished she had someone to tell it to her again, but for now, her memory of Yinsen's voice would do.

_"What difference does it make? I'll be dead in a week."_

_"Well, then this is a very important week for you."_

Yeah, she could do something. She would do something. Because Toni hadn't done enough to atone for all the shit she'd caused just yet—she started with the arc reactor, and that's what she would continue with. Until the end.

Until Toni ended.

**… Clint POV ...**

"How much can you bench?" Toni inquired in an idle voice. That was wrong. There was _nothing_ idle about Toni Stark.

Clint blinked, knowing that this was a question he should answer with caution. In fact, when dealing with Stark, everything was supposed to done with caution, because every report about her said 'volatile' on it.

Why was she asking that? Clint looked down and realized that he was wearing a t-shirt, which left his arms on display. Which Toni was now ogling. Oddly enough, her look wasn't salacious, just very, very interested.

"Not sure. Why?"

Toni frowned, shooting him a doubtful look, before shaking her head and standing. She had been lounging on the couch which Clint answered calls and arrange Toni's meetings (not that she had many now, since she wasn't CEO).

Toni had been unusually quiet ever since they'd come back from Monaco, but that was expected after Ivan Vanko showed up to mutilate anything that had Stark's name on it. It was sheer luck that Toni had rolled out of the car before Vanko sliced it in two with the help of his very own arc reactor, and even luckier that Stark got the hell out of dodge before Iron Man showed up and put Vanko down—and demolished half the race track in the process.

"I'm trying to decide between going two routes. One is more productive, but will also require more exertion and heavy lifting and possibly reconstructing the house," Toni fiddled with a pen she'd snagged from Clint's desk.

Clint watched her suspiciously. "And the other route?" he asked, hoping that he didn't regret it.

She grinned, and somehow it looked feral. "Is more inclined to get out of hand," said Toni, intentionally obscure. "But it's a pretty basic route, actually."

She leaned forward onto Clint's desk, watching him with excited brown eyes. "So? What'll it be?"

Clint sat back in his chair, reviewing his options. "You're asking me to chose between you throwing a house party or helping you with your 'research project'?" he deduced quickly.

Toni's smile fell, and she slouched onto the glass desk. "Buzzkill, man…"

But Clint chuckled, making Toni look up suspiciously. "What?" she asked, curiosity getting the better of her. Clint noticed that it usually did.

Coulson (and Nat) was going to hate him… But hey, Clint didn't exactly sign up for this espionage assignment—that was Nat's M.O., but an attractive young man was more likely to get the position.

"Why not do both?" Clint suggested. Toni was already interested. "I'll hold off Pepper for today—and _only_ today. But then you let me see what you're working on tomorrow."

Toni's jaw had dropped. It took a moment for her to compose herself. And then she grinned widely. "Well, the party was going to be like my last huzzah, but I'm a woman of science," she commented, like she was trying to reason with her decision. "Alright. Deal. I'll work on my project tomorrow."

Clint grinned back, but his mind was elsewhere. He had to contact Coulson. What was Toni talking about when she said 'my last huzzah'?

**…**

Well, the party was a disaster, Col. Rhodes stole War Machine for the military, and the house was mostly demolished from a fight between Iron Man and Rhodes in the War Machine suit.

Yet, true to her word, Toni was in the basement—which was only slightly destroyed—flipping through digital files stored on her computer for some old research to refer back to.

"You know, I don't think this was in the job description," Clint called out to Toni, grunting at he tightened a bolt into place.

"Quiet, you." Toni gave up on the files for the moment, and came over to check his progress. Or check him out. A little of both, really. "Is it level?"

With a practiced hand, Clint placed the leveler on the constructed portion of the particle collider, and frowned. "No, this part's too low."

Toni nodded. "Move on to the next part—if it's too tight the I won't be able to level it out later." Clint obliged, and lifted another portion of the machine into place, maneuvering it around the hole in the wall that Toni had made to make room for the collider. As he did so, Toni went back to her desk.

"Where are they?" she muttered to herself, scowling at her holographic screens. "J, what happened to Howard's stuff?" She flipped through more files, and Clint noticed now that they were all empty or redacted.

_~There seems to be a problem retrieving Howard Stark's research, Miss. I'm afraid they do not exist on my servers.~_

"But you're connected to all the SI servers!" Toni protested loudly. She pointed to Clint. "Don't stop what you're doing, sweetheart, I still need that collider."

Clint rolled his eyes, but continued to assemble the cylindrical structure. Fury was scheduled to drop in at any moment—he had commands to approach Stark if she ever started looking into Howard's research on her own.

_~Miss, it seems that you have an unauthorized visitor.~_

"Don't let 'em in."

_~My apologies, but I am being overridden—~_

"JARVIS?" Toni asked in alarm. She checked her monitor, and gave it a quizzical look. Clint came over. Lo and behold, Fury was making his way to the basement with a group of men with black boxes.

Looked like Clint's espionage mission was over. He quickly unlocked the door to the basement just as Fury appeared at the bottom of the staircase.

"Bates, what the hell?" Toni snapped, looking between him and Fury.

"Sir," Clint muttered, standing aside as Fury gave him a swift nod and passed him.

Clint watched, expressionlessly, as Toni realized what was happening. She noticed the insignia on the black boxes, and scowled at Fury and Clint.

"Well, if it means anything at all, 'Clyde Bates' you're… uh… fired," Toni said lamely.

**… Toni POV ...**

The wrench in her hands clattered to the floor, but Toni didn't care. Her eyes were glued to the center of her particle collider, where she had just successfully synthesized a new element.

"Can't believe he was right," she muttered to herself, ducking under the collider's metal tube to get a closer look. "Dead for _nine years_, and Howard's still taking me to school…"

Granted, it was Fury's help that he kick-started this little experiment, but she'd already come up with the hypothesis when the Director showed up with boxes of Howard's incomplete research.

Toni _knew_ that Clyde wasn't real, that there was something up with his muscle-y arms and occasional outburst of dry humor, but she hadn't expected him to be a freakin' _SHIELD agent_, on par with Coulson and Fury.

In her rage, she had sent him upstairs for a time out upstairs and finished the collider on her own by using Howard's shield design for Captain America to finally get the thing level. Coulson had been horrified, which made her feel a little better.

"J, get the PA down here!" she called out, already placing the new element into a reactor and switching out the one in her chest. The effects weren't instantaneous, but Toni was already feeling much, much better.

~_Miss, may I remind you that he is not on your payroll?~ _

"He's supposed to be watching me, right? If he wants to know what I'm up to, he needs to get down here," Toni explained, wondering if Clyde/Clint could hear her from wherever he was.

"You needed me?"

Toni whirled around, and found Clyde just passing through the glass sliding door to her basement lab, casually strolling in like he hadn't just appeared out of nowhere in two seconds flat.

"Yeah—were you military?" she asked, striding over to her revamped suit, fitted to be powered by the new energy source she'd just synthesized.

"I was a Ranger. Best marksman in the unit."

"Ha! Knew it…" Toni offered no explanation of her exclamation to Clint, so he just ignored it.

Clyde came closer, looking over the suit curiously. "So...why lie to the media about Iron Man?" he asked, his eyes still glued to the suit being fitted around Toni.

She checked her watch briefly, and then allowed for her gauntlet to be fitted over her forearms. Toni needed to get to the Stark Expo… "Uh—well, Coulson suggested it, and it gave me an excuse not to answer questions—I hate stupid questions."

Clyde-Clint gave her a disbelieving look, but said nothing. "I'm supposed to be evaluating you," he admitted nonchalantly.

Toni raised an eyebrow, the faceplate held just above the rest of her helmet by a robotic arm that would move at her will. "Evaluating me for _what?_"

Clint-Clyde looked around, and shrugged, "I don't have the file with me—the Avengers Initiative. Fury doesn't want to tell you about it till I hand in my report."

Now, it was Toni's turn to give Clyde a disbelieving look. She knew that JARVIS was already looking into the 'Avengers Initiative', so she didn't ask about that.

"So... why are you telling me now?" she asked in a slightly more subdued voice.

Clint shrugged again, leaning against her worktable and examining the suit idly. "Because I gave you a positive report." Toni snorted inelegantly, but Clint went on. "If I were going on your most recent actions, I'd call you volatile, self-obsessed and narcissistic."

"Stop, you're making me blush," Toni deadpanned. Clint ignored her again.

"C'mon, Stark. You and I both know you did all that shit because you were dying. Until now." He nodded towards the new reactor, and Toni stilled at his words, looking away. "I'm going with my gut on this, Stark. You're healthy again. So shape up and kick some ass."

A laugh bubbled up form her throat, accompanied by a brief grin on Toni's face. "That, I think I can do," she agreed, and the faceplate clamped onto her helmet.

A moment later, and she was flying out of the garage, faster than ever, towards the Expo where Rhodey was due for a demonstration of the new HammerTech War Machines.

* * *

**I needed to used Iron Man 2 to set up the dynamic between Toni and Clint. Everything else from here on out will be Avengers, I swear! **

**And no, this isn't a Clint/Toni story. Though that's a pretty interesting combo, and this story does have the potential to go that route. **

**But no, probably not. I like ScienceBros and Stony better.**


	3. Coulson

**I got a review for this story (you know who you are!), and I kind of liked the idea of a more apparent friendship between Toni and Clint that he/she suggested. And some kind of friendship with Natasha, eventually. **

**So, anyway, here's another chapter, skipping ahead some to the beginning of The Avengers movie, like I promised.**

****A/N: edited a bit of this chapter for clarity :) Enjoy.**

**Ch. 3 - Coulson**

* * *

The Mark IIX was meant for underwater use, but that didn't make her feel any better about being at the bottom of the Hudson rewiring the power grid. Toni didn't even_ like_ water. Cold showers were okay, but ugh, baths were horrible.

"And… we're good!" Toni spoke through the suit, as she placed a device into the pipeline and sealed it back up. "How're we looking on your end, Pepper?"

_"You disconnected the transmission lines? Are we off the grid?"_ asked Pepper, as her face popped up in the corner of Toni's monitor. She smirked proudly at her redheaded friend.

"Stark Tower is about to become a beacon for self-sustaining, clean energy," she declared in answer. "Light her up, already!" she encouraged Pepper.

_"Well, assuming that the arc reactor takes over and actually works…"_

"I assume! The others worked like a charm, and so will this. C'mon, I want the CEO to do it!" Toni whined, but was unable to keep the smirk off her face. She could see Pepper roll her eyes. Powering up her thrusters, Toni sighed slightly when she broke the surface of the river, and started her flight to Stark Tower to see her light show.

A grin split Toni's face in two when she witnessed the tower flicker on and proudly display the Stark logo. Pepper's voice crackled through the suit as Toni whizzed towards her newest building.

_"How does it look?"_

The dark-haired woman chuckled. In all honesty, Toni was slightly dazzled by her own work of art.

"It's like Christmas… but with more _me._"

Toni made it clear that this was a very good addition. "I'm just worried about the structural integrity of my name. I didn't like the looks of those workmen," Toni commented truthfully. She had been forced to break out the Mark VI to help them attach the 'A' in 'STARK' because they were so incompetent.

_"They just wanted to see Iron Man flying around New York, Toni."_ Pepper explained exasperatedly. Toni wasn't convinced, but that was irrelevant. _"You know, we've got to go wider on the public awareness campaign—you need to do some press."_

"Yeah, but—"

_"I'm in DC tomorrow, working on the zoning for the next three buildings,"_ Pepper cut her off, but Toni made no attempt to argue further. Pepper knew what she was doing—why else would Toni appoint her best friend as CEO of her company? Well, besides the fact that she did it when she was dying, Toni chose Pepper because she was the best candidate for a successor.

"Yeah, yeah. I'm on the roof, by the way." Toni touched down, smiling slightly as she remembered her disastrous first landing, just over a year ago. Rhodey never really forgave her for totaling her own Lamborghini. Neither did Toni, but she replaced it with a bright red Audi and was very happy with it.

She entered a private workshop—one that few even knew existed—and automatically her suit was being dismantled and stored. Robotic arms worked around her, but Toni trusted her bots more than she trusted most humans.

_"Miss, Agent Coulson of SHIELD is on the line,"_ JARVIS informed her. Remember those humans that Toni didn't trust? Yeah, you could blame SHIELD for that. Toni frowned at the thought of speaking with Coulson, the middle-aged SHIELD agent that probably knew how to kill her with a paperclip.

"Tell him I'm still out."

Every time Coulson called, things got complicated for Toni. She could handle talking to Clint, but so far all the other SHIELD agents she met were asshats and Toni hated them.

_"I'm afraid he's insisting._"

Toni scowled a little, and swapped out the breathable, spandex-like shorts she wore under the suit for jeans. She kept the tight-fitting long sleeve on, and threw a loose Pink Floyd shirt over it to mute the reactor's glow.

"Hey Pepper!" she called out, entering the spacious penthouse and ignoring her AI's messages from Coulson.

The ginger in question turned around expectantly, and beamed at Toni, glancing at the Starkpad in her neatly-manicured hands.

"Levels are holding steady, Toni. I think we're good."

Toni snorted, but it was more for show than actual arrogance. "Of course it's holding steady, it's an arc reactor _I made_." Pepper didn't even bother to roll her eyes at Toni, but held out the Starkpad for Toni to check their data herself. She nodded, and grinned at Pepper. "This wouldn't have happened without you, Pep."

Toni didn't think it was possible, but Pepper was smiling even wider now, and threw her arms around Toni with a squeal. "Oh, Toni! The company's moving in such a good direction—you're the one that made this possible."

Toni patted Pepper's back like the awkward twenty-four year old she was. She didn't mind the contact, but rather she was unsure how to respond to it. But Pepper was used to that.

"Well. Yeah, I am," Toni admitted. Pepper pulled back, raising one perfect eyebrow at her friend. The heiress only smirked back. "Your idea—true—but I made all the stuff, did the heavy lifting—"

"So you're saying I didn't do anything? I'm the one who's building up an image for SI, started the marketing for your clean energy plan, got the zoning for this building to be _built_—"

"Ok, ok, I got it. That's about… what, twelve percent? Don't answer that, I'm better with the math," Toni teased, slipped away before Pepper could smack her arm or something. She seized a bottle of apple cider, was disappointed for a moment, and then poured herself a glass in celebration even though apple cider felt like defeat.

"You know, it's going to say 'Potts' on the lease for the next building!" Pepper warned, accepting the glass Toni offered.

_"Miss? The telephone."_ JARVIS interrupted, and Toni noticed a sense of urgency to his tone. She didn't say a word, but Coulson's voice came through the intercom.

_"Toni, we need to talk."_

Toni picked up the receiver and quipped, "You've reached the life-sized holographic decoy of _Natasha Antonia Stark_. Please leave your name and number at the tone—"

_"Stark, this is urgent."_

"Then leave it urgently. Beeeep—"

The elevator _dinged_ and Agent Coulson stepped in, ending the call on his phone. "Security breach! I knew something was wrong with the security…" Toni commented, frowning at the agent. "Those damn workmen, again!"

"_Phil!_ Come in!" Pepper invited him cheerfully, and Toni was dumbfounded until Agent Coulson followed her.

"'Phil'? No, no—your first name is 'Agent'!" Toni protested, trailing after them like a child.

"We're celebrating, would you care to join us?" Pepper asked courteously. Toni knew he probably wouldn't, but she groaned in displeasure all the same. Coulson turned to Toni.

"We need you to look over this as soon as possible."

Coulson held out a simple table with an extensive digital file opened on-screen, but Toni paused. Clint was usually the messenger boy in these situations, because he was the only one that Toni actually kind of liked.

But it was a _really_ extensive file, and Toni couldn't stop herself from snatching it away from Coulson, merely muttering, "Where's Barton?" as she flipped through the first few pages with a swipe of her callused fingers.

Though she noticed Coulson's silence, Toni brushed it off. Coulson was one of the hard-asses that wouldn't tell her shit if it wasn't crucial to her cooperation, anyway.

"Is this about the Avengers?" Pepper asked inquisitively, before her face fell a little. "Which I know nothing about…"

Toni ignored them, looking at the file instead. She was somewhat surprised at the information, and gave the agent a perplexed look.

Coulson knew that Toni had already turned them down for the Avengers Initiative. Even with Barton's report, which was actually quite sparkling, she had no interest in working with a group of misfits she didn't know. It's why she became a consultant for SHIELD—it was in lieu of joining Fury's boy band (where the only positive would be the attractive men).

But Coulson remained frustratingly expressionless as always.

Toni scrunched up her nose in annoyance. "My official consulting hours are between 8 am and 5 pm every other Thursday for SHIELD operatives, pal, but I guess I could squeeze you in." she joked half-heartedly, absorbed in the file. She sat on the couch without really think about it.

"As you can see, this isn't a consultation, Stark." Coulson replied smoothly. Damn, he was _porcelain_. But Toni was the bull.

"Why's the group called the 'Avengers' anyway?" she complained, squinting at the information thoughtfully. It was more in-depth than the last file she'd been allowed access to. "I mean, that's kind of a bad vibe—what are they avenging? I can see this is a global crisis. Are they going to wait until the world's blown up so they can avenge it? Why aren't they '_Protectors'?_ How about '_Guardians_'?"

Toni glanced at Coulson and Pepper quickly, but didn't give either of them a chance to respond.

"Wait—this guy, Thor, he's from a different planet? No, a different 'realm'. Does that translate into a universe or a galaxy?"

"I've got it. Your boy band should be the _Guardians of the Galaxy_, I like the alliteration—"

"Miss Stark," Coulson interrupted her quickly. Her head snapped up, and she acknowledged him with a small 'huh?' before glancing back at the screen, muttering about gamma radiation. "Just—just read the file, and we'll alert you tomorrow if there's any updates… Keep Iron Man ready, if you accept." He gave her a short, meaningful look, and left.

"Iron Man's always ready," Toni muttered, brushing her bangs out of her eyes. She had kept it boyishly short ever since Afghanistan, simply for the practicality.

Toni didn't notice Pepper walk out with Phil, asking about a cellist from Portland. "I'll do my homework. JARVIS, turn on the coffee machine—looks like I'm going to become an expert in thermonuclear physics and gamma radiation tonight."

_~I know you won't listen when I advise you not to strain yourself, so good luck, Miss Stark.~_

She grinned, her eyes not leaving the digital file. "Thanks, JARVIS." The file was extensive, but she appreciated how thorough Dr. Banner and Dr. Selvig's notes were. It was a nice challenge.

Toni set the Starkpad on the counter in front of a large glass wall, and motioned for the screen to display as much information from the Avengers Initiative file as possible. Her eyes were momentarily drawn to the rolling footage of a large green creature, a man in red white and blue, and a pair of dark figures under siege in what appeared to be Budapest.

Naturally, she clicked on Barton's file...

_"What the fuck, Coulson?!"_ Toni stormed after the agent and Pepper.

Coulson… actually looked a little regretful. Weird. The guy had a _killer_ poker face most of the time. "I see you read about Barton."

"Yeah," Toni snarled, crossing her arms to quell her urge to slap the agent. It probably wouldn't end well if she did. "What do you mean, he's 'currently compromised'?"

By now, Coulson's expression had smoothed out into that mask once more, but his voice still held a noticeable dash of distress. "He and Dr. Selvig were in the vicinity when our bogey came through a portal created by the cube. They were both put under the influence of the bogey's weapon, which, for lack of a better word, brainwashed them."

And then Toni began to reel in her concern. She was a genius, god damn it, not an emotional little girl…

"You could've started off with that, Coulson," Toni pointed out in a disgruntled voice, her anger fading into a shell around her. It always did. "I'll get back to you in the morning."

Retreating back to her couch, Toni ran a hand through her brutally short hair. It was long enough for strands to flop into her face, but that was the extent of her hair's ability. Pepper was always trying to convince her to grow it out.

But Toni was actually very happy with her hair length. Not too long, otherwise it would get caught in her helmet when she wore her suit, but long enough for Toni to feel some of her anxiety dissipating when she yanked at her locks by the handful, which she was currently doing.

_~Miss, I'd suggest you discontinue pulling out your own hair, as you requested a reminder during highly stressful events.~_

She really knew how to cover all her bases, didn't she?

Toni obliged, relaxing her fingers and brushing her hair back gently. "Thank you, J," she muttered gratefully, settling herself on the couch again. "JARVIS, where's that coffee? My homework's due tomorrow and I'm pulling an all-nighter."

…

The following morning, Toni couldn't stand it any longer. She had to accept. "JARVIS! I'm calling Coulson!"

The call was brief, and to the point.

_"You're not supposed to have this number._" She swore she heard the agent sigh in exasperation. What was this madness? Coulson didn't _have_ emotions.

"You should've told me that sooner, Agent Phil!" she admonished him, her excitement leaking into her tone.

_"Don't call me that. What's this about?"_

Toni bit her lip, but sounded certain of herself when she answered, "I'm in, for sure. Send me all the intel, I'll see you soon, Coulson!"

She ended the call and went back to the extensive, fascinating info on Thor, the 'god of thunder' from Norse mythology. But what Toni _really_ wanted to know was whether or not Loki actually gave birth to that horse…

* * *

**Did you catch my little easter egg? I've never read the comics, but I'm fairly well-versed in the Marvel universes :)**


	4. Natasha

**So, here's a bit of dialogue between Stark and Romanoff. Tell me what you think :)**

****A/N: edited! Kinda. Hope it's clearer now :) Enjoy.**

**Ch. 4 - Natasha**

* * *

1900 HOURS—LOCATION: CALCUTTA, INDIA

Toni wasn't entirely sure what she was doing in India. She admitted this to Bonnie, who rolled her eyes.

"Will you stop calling me Bonnie, Stark? I don't even know why you're doing it."

A grin slowly made its way onto Toni's face as she regarded the red haired woman. Well, you couldn't see her red hair, because she was covering it with a scarf, but it was there. Toni reminded herself to ask the assassin what kind of dye she used.

"Because of _Clyde_, your partner in crime. Or whatever it is you two do. What exactly went down in Budapest, by the way?"

Natasha Romanoff shot her a cold look, but Toni was unfazed. If this woman could handle Clint, she could handle Toni. "That's classified. Look Stark, you're here because you speak this guy's language, and you can help convince him to join us. We need his level of expertise in gamma radiation."

Pouting, Toni leaned back in her hard wooden chair, propping her feet up on Natasha's.

"Why did you even consider asking for my help in the first place? I mean, Banner's work is—is _unparalleled_, but I'm not one for clandestine, black ops missions to third-world countries seeking out a man that's been running from the US government for years."

"But you _are_ the one who knows how this guy's mind works." Natasha countered, deciding to ignore Toni's feet in favor of pointing this out. "I'll do the talking, but you being here—a fellow scientist—"

"Actually I'm an engineer—"

"—Someone who understands the gravity of the situation while understanding Banner's; that's what will convince him to help us." Natasha checked her watch as Toni mulled over the words. It made sense, but how much could you trust an assassin?

Toni hadn't even met this chick until yesterday.

* * *

_…Yesterday…_

Coulson was hard to read.

She rubbed at her eyes blearily, looking at the file in her hands and taking in his straight back form, hands clasped in front of him like it was standard procedure (which it probably was for square agents like Coulson). Clint had a decent poker face, but he had nothing on this guy. _Impossibly impassive_, that's what Coulson was.

Now, Toni's pretty decent at reading people. If Fury was an open book (which he totally was), then Coulson was a book of blank pages. And Clint was a trashy romance novel - she didn't really want to know what he was thinking, but he let her know regardless.

"What do you know about Agent Romanoff?"

Toni blinked up at Coulson from her established pillow pile on the couch.

"Uh, her entire file was redacted, even the medical file," she reminded him. Toni had considered bypassing SHIELD's firewall to look into it, but then she fell asleep.

"She came by earlier and requested your assistance in her current assignment-"

"Wait, she was HERE?"

"—we've put together a file for you to look over should you agree to cooperate—"

"Isn't she Barton's partner? Part-time partner, I think. By the way, why are they both fluent in Hungarian as of 2008?"

"That's classified."

"It has something to do with Budapest—"

"You don't have enough access to know about that—"

Toni waved away his concerned tone. "I read between the lines. When can I consciously meet the Widow, Coulson?"

He checked his watch. "In five minutes. Your belongings have already been packed." Coulson pointed to the file. The top read 'Top Secret', and Toni was already in. "I recommend you go over that."

* * *

Naturally, Toni did not read more than the first page of the file, which contained vague info on Bruce Banner that she'd already known from the Avengers file. She'd gotten sick of all the covert super-spy files, so she never looked farther.

"…Okay," said Toni eventually, taking her feet off of Natasha's chair as she did so. "So how's this going to play out, again? I didn't read the file."

"_You didn't read the file?!_"

Toni shrugged indifferently. "Do you know how long it takes to teach yourself thermonuclear physics? I got sick of reading all the files you people hand out."

Natasha shut her eyes, pinching the bridge of her nose. Toni noticed that many of the people in her life did this quite often.

"I'm not _completely_ ignorant," Toni pointed out, "I know the risks—really, I do. But yes you should probably tell me what your plan is if he gets mad at you or one of your twenty ninjas."

Agent Romanoff raised one eyebrow, looking at Toni doubtfully. "What makes you so sure it'll be _my_ fault if we have a code red?"

Huh. Toni had been certain they'd be calling it a code green…

"Pfft. Don't be silly, Bonnie. He's gonna love me." Toni waved her off with a cheeky smile. "But how the hell do you plan to get us out of here?"

"Didn't you bring your suit?"

"Of course I brought the suit! You told me to bring the suit."

"Well, then make sure you have easy access to it. I've got everything else covered."

"What?" Toni didn't care that Romanoff was an accomplished assassin and spy. "Whoa, hold up there, Agent Ariel. You think I'd leave you just to get out of dodge? You wound me."

Cool green eyes met brown, but they weren't as expressionless as they'd been when the two women had first encountered each other. Toni could see the slight surprise on Romanoff's face. "You're a civilian, Stark. Your safety is a priority."

Toni groaned in frustration, rubbing at her face. "Why are you such a robot when _I'm _with one with the armored suit?" she wondered aloud, letting her exasperation leak into her voice. "Doesn't matter. It won't come to that anyway."

Obviously, Romanoff was going to argue that point, so Toni cut her off. "How much did Clint tell you about me? He's mentioned you before." Her tone was slightly lower than before. Toni checked her watch—they had an hour before Banner was scheduled to arrive.

"We kept in contact through his assignment with you."

Natasha was brief, and did not delve into what this meant. Toni remembered that Barton was currently brainwashed by Loki, and wondered how much it was affecting Romanoff. Probably not performance-wise, but by the way Clint talked about Natasha, they were pretty close.

Toni fiddled with the communicator in her ear, figuring that Barton was a touchy subject. Actually, everything was a touchy subject with Natasha—Toni wasn't sure what would spark the Widow's infamous wrath.

But that didn't mean Toni was going to tip-toe around her. If there was anything her dad taught her, it was that Starks were meant to _strut._

"Don't you start brooding on me, Bonnie. When we find Clyde, you can beat some sense into him. Cognitive recalibration can fix a lot of problems. Just take me, for example," she ended with a joke, but Toni was actually pretty serious. If anything, knocking Clint out would give SHIELD enough time to figure out how to undo the Cosmic Cube's mind control.

But Romanoff didn't answer. So Toni tried again. "I can see why you like him," she admitted truthfully, thinking of Clint, the idiot who decided to approve a maniac like Toni for a team of superheroes and assassins. "You must've heard Barton complaining about me while he was undercover. If he said anything about me, it was that I'm out of control, egotistical and dangerous."

Toni watched for Natasha's reaction, which came in the form of a quick little flicker of her green eyes. She was listening.

"And then he approved me for the Initiative, because he was going with his instincts instead of what was right in front of him," Toni realized that he voice was getting tender and mushy, so she took a moment to reel that back in. "He's an idiot, of course. I mean, he uses _arrows _when he's perfectly capable of using bullets. But he's so friggin' confident in me. Who _does_ that?"

And Natasha turned her head towards Toni. _Finally_. Her eyes were still on the floor, but she spoke. "Barton does. He makes his own calls. And he's usually right."

The silence stretched, pressing on Toni until she was sure she was going to explode within a minute or so—

Romanoff pressed on her communicator. A voice crackled through Toni's left ear.

_"Banner is in the vicinity. ETA two minutes."_

Neither of them moved from their positions at the rickety wooden table. It wasn't in the direct line of sight from the door, but they were still unhidden. They'd already established that they'd approach Banner from here.

Toni flashed a smirk towards Natasha when their eyes met.

"So, who's seducing him again? Or was it both of us?"

* * *

** Is Toni out of character? I mean, the personality's already kind of altered because he's a she, but I hope it's somewhat realistic. Maybe I didn't make it very clear, but Natasha doesn't want to talk about her feelings, or her relationship with Clint, so Toni's being pretty rude in her attempts for conversation (because Toni likes talking, even when it gets her in trouble). But, I think there's a sense of camaraderie building. That's what I was hoping for, at least.  
**

**I think it's pretty clear who Toni's meeting next. If you're looking forward to the next chapter, I advise that you follow this story/favorite this story/PM me/leave a review that indicates such. **


	5. Bruce

**Ch. 5 - Bruce**

* * *

"Should have gotten paid upfront, Banner."

Banner was unusually chill for a guy on the run. Then again, it probably came with necessity. Toni leaned back in her chair, letting Natasha stand to greet the good doctor.

"You know, for a man that's supposed to be avoiding stress, you picked a hell of a place to settle." Ooh, Natasha was using her sexy voice. Toni knew it—they were going to seduce him. How fun.

"Avoiding stress isn't the secret." Toni couldn't see him very well from her position, but she heard him set down a bag of supplies and move to face Natasha. The floor creaked a lot.

"Then what is it?" Natasha asked. "Yoga?" she suggested teasingly.

He moved, and Toni got a clear picture of him. Living in the slums had changed Bruce Banner.

His hair was tousled and coated with a fine layer of dust that everything in India seemed to come with. He wore a brown blazer and dull clothing that made him seem very insignificant. Even his posture screamed 'don't mind me, I'm nobody important'.

At the same time, Banner noted Toni's presence, but he only spared her the briefest of glances; Toni didn't offer any greeting, preferring to focus on balancing on the two hind legs of her wooden chair.

For the time being, Toni would defer to Romanoff for this situation, and Banner turned his gaze on the much deadlier red head instead.

"That was smart, you brought me to the edge of the city." He could've played along with Natasha's question, but he didn't. Instead, he peeked out a window to check for movement in the dark. "I suppose you have the place surrounded?"

_He's been reduced to a survivalist,_ Toni noted. _I knew I hated authority for a reason._

"They're here for appearances, doc," Toni piped up, ignoring Natasha's alarmed look (which Banner missed, thankfully). "But I didn't come along to be smashed. At least, not in the literal sense."

Choosing not to get up from her seat, Toni rocked forward a little, and grinned up at Natasha and Banner.

Her grin widened when Banner took a closer look at her, recognition evident in his sharp brown eyes. "I guess you miss a few things when you're living under the radar, I didn't recognize you," he mused. "When did Toni Stark begin endorsing a faceless government agency... Actually, the better question is who _are _you?"

The question was directed at Natasha (or the faceless government agency, Toni supposed), and the agent answered honestly, if not in a weirdly meek voice.

"Natasha Romanoff."

"And your actress buddy? Is she a spy too? They start that young?" Banner asked cynically.

"I did." Ok, at this point, Natasha's mind game became a little too complicated for Toni to follow. Was she invoking sympathy or trying to threaten Banner? ...maybe both?

Either way, Banner was silent, clasping and unclasping his hands as he thought.

"She's not trying to assassinate you, doc," Toni interrupted him, kicking off of the table to see how long she could balance for. They needed to speed this up. Banner seemed to be stalling, and there was no need to.

"Ms. Stark is right. I'm here on behalf of SHIELD." Damn, Natasha was good at keeping up that unruffled persona. Better than_ Coulson._Freakin' robots. Even her AI had more emotion these agents.

Banner scoffed, and began to walk around the room. It was a nervous, absentminded walk, Toni could tell. It happened often to her.

"SHIELD... How'd they find me?"

"We never lost you. We've kept out distance. Even kept a few interested parties off your scent."

If Banner was grateful, he didn't show it (and he probably wasn't too grateful). "Why?" he asked simply.

Toni recalled a request from SHIELD a few weeks ago. They'd tasked her with asking Ross for access to Blonsky. Clint had explained that it was the World Security Council's orders, not Fury's, and that they planned on approaching Banner instead.

Toni already thought the doctor was the better choice. Sure, having the Green Giant was great, but Banner as himself was pretty smart. Ross had been such a bore, she didn't mind that SHIELD had asked her to "just be yourself" when meeting the general to scare him off.

"You're better than Blonsky," Toni answered him bluntly. Shirley Temple looked outraged and Banner was somber—but paying attention.

"And you're not incompetent—_catch._" She tapped a few buttons on her phone and tossed it at Banner. "I'm not donating jack shit to Nick Fury's people, bro. But this thing? Yeah, I'd take a look at it."

When Banner put on his glasses to look at the picture, Toni knew they had him. "What is it?"

Natasha gave Toni a severe look from behind Banner, and Toni decided that she could share the limelight because the consequences of _not_ doing so would probably be detrimental to Toni's well-being.

"It's called a Tesseract. It has the potential energy to wipe out the planet." Natasha coolly walked back to the table, occupying one of two available chairs and inviting Banner to sit down as well. He didn't, but wandered a little closer.

"What does Fury want me to do, swallow it?"

Toni wondered how long Banner had been on the run. His file said he was only thirty-four; his grey hair told her that those few years on the run had the same affect as a few _decades_ on his mind. Not to mention his cynicism. What a downer.

"They want you and me to find it, because they've lost their favorite toy and now some guy's trying to rule the world with it," Toni interrupted Natasha before the assassin could even get a word out. The look Toni received was just as scary as Pepper's threatening looks.

But Toni was a big girl. She could handle intimidating red heads. "I'm sorry, was I supposed to gloss that over?" she apologized mockingly. "Because I don't like euphemisms, I didn't think he would appreciate it either."

Banner was still pretty chill, but his jaw was locked and he looked between Toni and Natasha restlessly. "Just to let you know, I _actively_ try to avoid global catastrophes…"

"It emits a gamma signature that's too weak for us to trace. There's no one that knows gamma radiation like you do. If there was, then that's where we'd be."

"So Fury doesn't want the monster?"

"Not that he's told me."

"And he tells you everything?" Banner countered.

Natasha was silent for just a moment too long. "Talk to Fury. He needs you."

"Needs me in a cage?"

"No one's going to put you in a cage—"

"_STOP LYING TO ME!" _he screamed, slamming his hands onto the rickety table. Toni was startled so badly that she toppled over in her unbalanced chair.

But of course, before Toni had even hit the ground, Natasha had seized her gun from a holster beneath the table and was aiming it, safety off, at Banner's face.

For a moment, the only sound in the shack was Toni's involuntary groan of pain as she picked herself off the ground.

"…You know how I said she's not trying to assassinate you?" Toni reminded Banner as he backed away from Romanoff calmly. "She's a little trigger-happy," admitted Toni through clenched teeth. She didn't appreciate Natasha's gun.

Banner nodded to Toni. "I'm sorry. That was mean. I just wanted to see what you'd do," Banner confessed slowly, holding up his hands in a gesture of peace as he watched Natasha. "Why don't we do this the easy way, and you put that away and the other guy doesn't make a mess. Okay?"

The red head in question didn't move from her position, staring at Banner down the barrel of her gun. Toni considered throwing something at her, but decided against it.

"Shirley, call off the ninjas before we get shot at," she advised instead, impatiently looking at the woman.

And finally, Natasha put down the gun, tossing Banner a quick look as she pressed on her communicator. "Stand down," she ordered them. "We're good here."

"'Just for appearances', Ms. Stark," Banner commented idly, coming closer to the two women again. Toni rolled her eyes.

"If you appeared to be in a green-skinned, smashing mood, Dr. Banner," quipped Toni, yanking her communicator out of her ear. She didn't like being connected to SHIELD. "By the way, your work on anti-collision electrons? Incomparable. I'm a fan."

While Natasha stepped away to talk with her ninjas, Toni strolled around the table and held out her hand to Dr. Banner, a wide smirk already back on her face. Banner shook her hand out of habit, and then paused to grimace.

"Uh… thanks," he said reluctantly, another habit Toni noted that Banner couldn't seem to shake—even though he obviously did not mean what he said.

"Don't mention it, big guy. I'll see you at the base in a few hours." Toni backed away, trying to retrace her steps to where she stashed her travel suit.

But Natasha stood in front of her, blocking her exit. "You're not coming on the jet?" Romanoff demanded.

Toni shrugged. "I know, it'll be a boring ride with out me and the male strippers. Don't worry, I'm sure my buddy here, Bruce, will keep you entertained." Patting Bruce on the shoulder as she passed, Toni pulled out her suitcase. "My way's faster."

Banner's eyebrows pulled together into a confused look. "What exactly do you mean…?"

Toni activated the suitcase, and grinned riotously again at Banner. "You really did miss a lot, didn't you? Yes, I'm Toni Stark. I'm also Iron Man." The helmet clamped into place as Toni stepped outside the shack—and then she blasted off.

What? Toni loved a good exit.

* * *

**You know what? I liked this chapter. And I've set up a pretty good dynamic between these three - that will become more apparent when they're a bit more comfortable with each other - that I'm really pleased about. **

**Any guesses about the future? What'll SHIELD (Fury, Hill, Coulson, Romanoff, etc.) think of Toni's approach to 'persuading the Hulk'? THAT right there? That's important to consider!**

**That's all for now, folks. I'd love to know what you think.**


	6. Steve (and Thor)

Sorry this was posted later than expected; it got kinda lengthy and I've been debating whether or not I could shorten it for the past few days.

In honor of the first Captain America: The Winter Soldier trailer being released, here's a new chapter.

Okay, this is more because Captain America's new look was AWESOME and writing is a healthier outlet than squealing like a fangirl at Chris Evan's portrayal of Cap. (But OMG he's incredible! Watch the trailer! Marvel's social commentary is remarkable—Captain America addressing the political/social problems of today? It adds a whole new layer of depth to the movie, and I can't wait.)

Ok, now that I got that all out...

* = taken directly from to Iron Man 3, because I felt like it.

'RHCP' is an abbreviated name of an alternative rock band. Any guesses? It's not hard to figure this out (or google it).

BTW, Thor's in this too, because it's still centered around the movie's plotline and I wanted to get a lot of dialogue between Toni and others.

WARNING: this is over **9,500 words long!**

**Ch. 6—Steve (and Thor)**

* * *

(Steve POV)

Steve Rogers had been looking forward to meeting Antonia Stark since he'd found out about Howard's last living relative - his brilliant daughter, no less. And she has to be brilliant, judging by Stark Industries' feats since she became CEO. But Steve wasn't that naive - the SHIELD agents in charge of bringing him up to speed had quickly shot down that eagerness with a bit more background on the Stark that was even more of a celebrity than Howard.

She was wild. She ruined the Stark name and the papers had been questioning the company's integrity for years when a magazine got the first few photographs of Stark weaponry supplying terrorists.

Until that point, Toni Stark had been enjoying her company's wealth lavish parties, harassing the press, and God knows what else. But then, and the details were fuzzy and very classified, Toni Stark came back from Afghanistan and shut down the weapons division of her company with a new plan for clean energy and new technology.

And then there was Iron Man. Steve read about the press release where Stark refused to give up the identity of the suit's wearer, but SHIELD also informed him of the real situation.

So at this point, Steve really didn't know what to think of Howard's daughter. He wasn't good with dames - women - to begin with, even if Peggy had liked him well enough, not to mention that blonde dame that he'd briefly encountered.

But Miss Stark didn't return from India with Dr. Banner and Agent Romanoff, so Steve didn't get to meet her at all. He did, however, meet Natasha and Bruce.

Steve shook hands with the meek doctor, wondering how a man like him could become something as ferocious as Agent Coulson described. "Nice to meet you, doctor. The word around here's that you can find us the cube?"

Bruce shook his hand firmly, but with a wary look in his eyes. "And that's the only word on me?" He asked Steve doubtfully.

Steve supposed that looks could be deceiving—pre-serum Steve being a prime example—and shrugged at the doctor. "Only word I care about," he replied honestly.

Agent Romanoff only spared him a curt look of acceptance. "You caused a lot of excitement around here, Captain," she commented in a cool voice. "I thought Coulson was going to swoon."

Ah. Coulson. "Right, I... spoke to him on the flight here," Steve acknowledged, trying to maintain the calm disposition that Natasha seemed to carry easily. It was hard when you were blushing.

"Did he ask you to sign his trading cards?" Natasha spoke flatly; Steve almost missed the teasing tone underneath her words until he caught her eye.

Shucks, now he really _was_ blushing. "Uh," he stalled, looking for something to change the subject. There wasn't much to talk about on a... Wait, what were they on anyway?  
"What exactly _is_ this place?" Steve wondered. He was used to the military scene, but this was something else.

Just as Steve asked this, an alarm began to sound, and personnel around them were suddenly strapping down all the jets. Steve wandered to the edge of the boat, wondering what was happening.

Bruce followed, and they both recognized that the water around the boat was churning, rising closer to the edge of the carrier. "Is this a submarine?" Steve asked, surprised.

Next to him, Bruce wrung his hands together. Natasha came over - when had she left? - and advised them to come to the bridge because, "it's about to get a little hard to breathe."

"Great," Bruce replied, running his hand through his hair. Steve had the feeling it was gesture of nervousness. "They're putting me in a pressurized enclosed space, underwater..."

Steve had to admit, it didn't sound like a good plan. He started to follow Agent Romanoff when the tarmac shifted, throwing him off balance.

In a submerging submarine, you'd expect the movement to be downward, towards the sea. Well, it seemed that SHIELD liked to exceed Steve's expectations, because the ground was moving upwards.

Steve moved a little closer to the edge once more, and saw that there were huge engines churning the water away, at least four of them, lifting the carrier into the air.

"Oh," Bruce rubbed at the bridge of his nose. "No, this is much worse."

Steve couldn't help but agree with Dr. Banner again. And acknowledge that he owed Director Fury ten bucks.

* * *

(Toni)

Toni would admit it—she lied to Banner and Romanoff. She wasn't going to meet them at the SHIELD base (the thing was a giant floating ship—_how_ was that incognito _or_ safe?). In lieu of the little team-bonding scene that was sure to be happening on Fury's little boat, Toni went home.

Or rather, her secondary home, because her motion sensors were being synthesized at her private lab in the Manhattan tower. Within a few minutes of arriving in New York, Toni was already standing on a lit platform, injecting the micro sensors into her forearms*. It didn't hurt very much, not after the years of manual labor, open flames and lab accidents that her arms had been through.

~_Sensors are calibrated. Shall we do a test run?~_

Toni grinned, and tested out her hand signals. She made two sharp movements with her right arm—after a few seconds of tense nothingness, her suit, which laid in pieces on the counter, stirred into action.

Her right gauntlet slammed into her wrist, nearly throwing her off the platform. With the left gauntlet, she stumbled off the dais with an "Oof!"

_~Miss?~_

"I'm good!" Toni called out, not sure if she was reassuring her AI or herself. "C'mon, baby, move!" she made another signal, and quickly lifted her leg up so that her left boot wouldn't crush her foot.

The right boot came, and she was airborne, waiting for the main chest, back and hip pieces. The chest and back flew at the same time, forcing Toni to fling an arm up to prevent the metal from taking a swing at her head while it flew into position.

"Shit, the Mark XII doesn't really like me, huh?" Toni mused as the last pieces of the body armor fitted themselves onto her without much trouble. But there was one more section of armor.

Her helmet was facing Toni, and suddenly she was regretting her helmet design—the faceplate looked a little foreboding. Freezing, Toni watched the helmet twitch.

"Aw, son of a—" the faceplate rocketed off the counter, aimed for her head, and did not slow down. Thanks to the suit, her reflexes were improved enough for Toni to catch the faceplate in her right hand—though her eyes were screw shut and braced for a bad concussion.

Toni stared at the faceplate, which had lost its internal lighting—like a wild animal that lost all its aggression at once. She sighed, refusing to acknowledge that the swell of emotion in her throat was relief, because that would imply that Toni had been seriously worried about her invention killing her. Pff, Toni was past _that_ stage of life!

Carefully, Toni put on her faceplate, and the inside screen lit up again, bombarding her with figures and statistics and energy readings that Toni read over leisurely, drinking up the information like it was Red Bull giving her wiings. It was moments like this that Toni felt the most invigorated, when she was calculating the success of her newest invention and finding that she was, indeed, a genius for creating something so freakin' awesome.

"So, got a flight plan laid out for me, J?" Toni asked, watching as the blue screen switched to a three maps overlaying each other, complete with the geography of the area, weather anomalies to look out for, and a dotted line detailed with the power necessary to sustain flight at certain altitudes.

_~Miss, I believe that SHIELD has tracked the position of the unknown party. ~_

"Loki?" the screen flipped again, and the facial recognition scanner currently being used by SHIELD popped up. "Ooh, he's in Stuttgart. Never been there. Wonder if they're bringing out Banner yet… hey JARVIS, can you use the same software SHIELD using?"

_~ Affirmative, Miss. ~ _

Toni grinned widely, and fired up her thrusters, flying out to her balcony to hover for a moment while JARVIS was fully synched into the new suit. "Then find Agent Barton. If he's not with Loki, then he's doing something under Loki's orders and it can't be good."

_~ Yes, Miss. I shall send you his coordinates if I can locate him. Good luck to you, Miss Stark. ~_

Toni rolled her eyes. "Don't need it."

She blasted off before her AI could give her a quick-witted response.

So SHIELD found Loki, in Germany. What was he doing? Oh, right, trying to destroy the world. No, wait… enslave the world? Yeah, he wanted to be a king, he was raised to be a king even though he was never meant to be a king… something about Frost Giants. What the hell had Toni read about? It didn't make much sense now as it did when she'd been chugging coffee two days ago. Oh shit! She forgot to sleep.

When Coulson had given her that file, Toni had a field day with it. She'd already broken into half of SHIELD's international servers, but the deep-secret files, the ones only found on the helicarrier, couldn't be hacked from a distance. After staying up until about 6 AM and confirming her position in the Initiative, Toni had about four hours of sleep before she was hopping on a plane to India (during which she slept for another few hours).

But now she was back in New York and the days were getting a little fuzzy. How long had it taken her to get back from India? The flight from Manhattan to Stuttgart was… seven hours? Was it day or night?

Oh well. Toni had royally fucked up her internal clock long ago. She didn't need much sleep to function.

Back to the problem in Germany. Loki was probably letting SHIELD see him—Toni was fairly certain that he could change his appearance at will, so why let SHIELD catch him? And Germany? What was in Germany? He had the Tesseract.

Ooh, the cube! He wanted to harness its energy, make a big ol' portal, maybe.

And suddenly the seven-hour journey didn't feel so boring anymore. Not when Toni Stark had her mind to occupy her with thoughts, theories and calculations regarding the necessary equipment to stabilize the quantum-tunneling effect… Her crash-course in astrophysics came rushing to the forefront of her mind, and Toni starting making notes with JARVIS's help.

Toni hoped she'd get to talk with Banner soon. He was probably the only one involved with SHIELD that actually spoke English.

* * *

"Ooh, look, the fun's already started," Toni commented to herself as she flew into Stuttgart, Germany. "Let's get some music, shall we?" She was pleased to see that JARVIS recognized what she was asking; an image of the quinjet hovering near Captain America and Loki appeared on her monitor.

Inside the jet, Natasha was focusing on avoiding blasts from Loki's scepter, and didn't notice the monitor flicker ever so slightly as an AI infiltrated it. She did, however, notice when _Shoot to Thrill_ was blasted from the quinjet's PA system. The copilot beside her jumped two feet into the air, but Natasha merely rolled her eyes surreptitiously.

Deeming AC/DC a respectable entrance (though Iron Maiden would probably be even more appropriate), Iron Man unceremoniously flew straight into Loki, barreling him onto the marble steps of the hall he had appeared from. Landing lightly, the weapons system of the suit opened up and aimed at Loki automatically.

_"Make you move, _Reindeer Games."

Captain America walked up and stood beside Iron Man as Loki's armor—including those glorious golden antlers—shimmered into nothing. _"Good idea,"_ Toni addressed Loki, and the multiple weapons folded back into the suit.

"Iron Man," the Captain addressed Toni, sounding formal and serious in the presence of the enemy. She was pretty sure Coulson had already gave away her big secret (what an asshole, stealing her thunder like that), so she just nodded quickly back to the captain.

_"Captain,_" Iron Man's masculine voice replied shortly. It had been an intentional alteration, when Toni had been hesitant about letting the world know that underneath such a menacing armor was a young woman. She didn't really care at this point, but supposed that it didn't hurt to follow Coulson's instructions for just this one thing. After all, the cat was kind of out of the bag when it came to her so-called secret identity—high-level SHIELD officials, the 'team', and Rhodey, Pepper and Happy, all knew about Toni being Iron Man.

A copilot escorted Loki to the quinjet, and Agent Romanoff approached Iron Man and Captain America. Toni resisted the urge to give Natasha a cheeky little wave—the humor was lost when one wore an expressionless, giant metal suit of armor.

"Come on, then, Captain." Romanoff turned to Iron Man, and raised an eyebrow. When Toni Stark got to meet this woman again, she needed to ask about her hair. It was beautiful. "You sticking around for the ride this time, _Iron Man_?"

Unable to shrug, Iron Man gave a curt nod. "Yeah, yeah. Team building and all," Toni accepted. She was in the prototype suit—not her best idea, but whatever—and didn't feel like flying for another seven hours back. It was probably time for Toni to actually meet up with the team on SHIELD's Helicarrier.

Natasha wasn't even paying attention to her anymore—had Toni offended her at some point? She couldn't remember.

When the doors closed, Toni felt it was time for the big reveal. The jet took off, and Toni stepped out from the suit, slicking her hair back nonchalantly and winking at their prisoner. His green-eyed stare didn't falter or change, which was kind of creepy. It was weird enough that Loki had surrendered without much of a fight…

The captain was staring too, albeit a little less creepier. At least he was a better sight to stare back at.

Still, Toni felt like she'd been put under a microscope, and reacted naturally. "It's ok to stare, I get that a lot," she grinned flirtatiously, striking a brief model pose that the press had become quite familiar with.

Well, that got his jaw to snap shut. His eyes quickly averted, blue irises breaking contact from her brown ones, and the captain's voice finally returned to him as Toni strapped herself in.

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Miss Stark," the captain said uncertainly. He held out a hand, and Toni shook it, despite the awkward angle they were strapped in at. "I'm Steve Rogers," he added.

She flashed him grin that felt oddly sincere, and nodded back to him. "Nice to meet you too, Captain, call me Toni… Oh, not-so-nice to meet you, _Rock of Ages_." Her eyes sharply flickered over to gaze at Loki, who hadn't taken his eyes off her yet.

The prisoner smirked. "Agent Barton told me of your secrets, Lady Stark. How fares that fickle heart of yours?"

Toni frowned slightly, realizing that Barton probably spilled a lot of beans when Loki jumbled up his marbles. But she brushed off that worry—she was planning to look into SHIELD's dirty little secrets anyway.

"Aw, I didn't know you cared so _much_," she teased, placing a hand over said heart in a show of mock-appreciation. "How fares your plan of world domination? 'Cause from where I'm sitting, you're not looking too good, Snape."

Loki seemed both bothered and completely at ease. He remained silent, so Toni looked back to Rogers, who was scrutinizing the prisoner with a very solemn expression. Hm. Looked like this was superhero-talk, not team-bonding.

"I don't like it," he commented in a muted voice, frowning in Loki's direction. Toni had a feeling that Loki could still hear them, but it didn't matter.

"You mean the demigod giving up so easily?" Toni guessed, already knowing that it was what bothered Rogers so much. It was suspicious to Toni as well.

He glanced at Loki doubtfully. "I don't remember it being that easy. This guy packs a wallop."

Toni took a moment to let Captain America's absurd vocabulary set in. Even though she managed not to make fun of him, she couldn't help but grin as she shrugged off the captain's concern. "I'm not going to evaluate the psyche of an alien trying to take over the world," Toni admitted nonchalantly.

Ah, fuck it. The captain was too uptight—he _needed_ someone to tease him. "Though I must say, you are pretty spry for an old-timer. Especially after doing time as a Capsicle. What's your secret? Calisthenics?"

Rogers frowned, and Toni supposed it was because she was still smiling, and maybe because he didn't appreciate humor. Ugh, what a bore. "Fury didn't tell me he was calling you in," he commented.

Now that made Toni's smile disappear. "There's a lot of things Fury doesn't tell you,_"_ she responded coolly, but the jet shook violently before the captain could say anything more on the subject.

"Where's this coming from?" Romanoff muttered in confusion. Toni watched lightning flash across the sky, followed by the rumble of thunder. The copilot beside Natasha was pressing buttons in a feverish haze, completely caught off-guard by the freak weather. Toni swore she saw the poor guy jump at the thunder.

Thunder. Oh.

Toni watched Loki, and the captain noticed their prisoner's wary glance at the ceiling. "Hey, Mr. High and Mighty, where's your brother at?"Loki's acidic eyes snapped towards Toni with a bright fury in them, before he glanced at the ceiling again.

"What's the matter?" the captain added, "Scared of a little lightning?"

"I'm not overly fond of what follows," Loki admitted, nodding towards Toni in a minute gesture of confirmation.

She had a feeling that the Thunder Guy hadn't gotten the memo on SHIELD. Toni unstrapped herself and basically leapt back into her suit, ignoring the captain's questions as she did so.

Then, Toni stood up and strode to the door, unlocking the hatch to the wild weather without a word. If Thor was coming, Toni would rather he didn't destroy the jet just to say hi. Toni didn't forget the SHIELD report on Puente Antiguo's attack.

"Toni, what are you doing?" the captain shouted over the wind, just as something crashed onto the roof of the jet, causing more turbulence. "What was _that?_" he asked instead.

_"I think Loki's having a family reunion.."_ Iron Man explained, just as a large blonde man flew into the jet, wielding a large hammer and a frown.

Literally tossing Iron Man aside, Thor seized Loki and they leapt out of the jet. Or, maybe they were flying. Toni was momentarily out for the count, and didn't see.

Luckily for Toni, Thor hadn't done any real damage to anything but the paint job. Her head rattling for the briefest moment, Toni recovered quickly, and was about to take off after the Asgardians when the captain stopped her.

"Wait! We need a plan of attack." He explained.

With a smirk firmly on her face, Toni replied, "I have a plan." Her faceplate clamped down again, locking Iron Man's glaring expression into place. "_Attack._"

"Stark—" and the rest of the captain's words were lost in the howl of wind in her eyes as Toni took off into the night, with the brilliant flash of the suit's thrusters as the only source of light besides the moon and stars.

But even in the dark, Toni could find the blonde god-like warrior, and hurled herself towards him. This time, it was Thor that was unprepared for Toni's entrance. Of course, it barely hurt the god, but she was only trying to get his attention. Still, she tackled him pretty ruthlessly.

They landed in a forest; the two of the crashed through trees, but Toni used the thrusters to help land on her feet while Thor skidded across the dirt before coming to a stop, upright and tensed.

"Do not touch me again," Thor warned. His voice was calm but Toni could see he'd be angry soon. Or rather, she'd _make_ him angry soon. No, no, that was Toni talking, not Iron Man.

"_Well, then don't _throw me_ again,"_ Toni retorted, sharp as ever.

Thor shook his head, glancing back at the mountain that Loki was watching from. "You have no idea what you're dealing with, Metal Man" he dismissed her.

_"Man?"_ Toni snorted at Thor's accent, and allowed the faceplate to lift. She was itching to mock him—preferably in a Shakespearian voice—but Iron Man didn't mock people. Usually. "We can handle Shakespeare, big guy_."_ Toni mentally grimaced, realizing that her condescending tone had not been hidden with the voice alterations.

She was still pleased when Thor looked lost between anger and confusion. "This is _beyond _you, Metal… Maiden. Loki will face _Asgardian_ justice," he explained, still somewhat calmly in his deep baritone.

Rolling her eyes, she muttered deprecatingly, "I think I'm closer to a man than a maiden," Then Toni allowing the faceplate to fasten itself onto her helmet once more.

Her left gauntlet twitched with the repulsor's heat, but Thor didn't notice. _"He gives up the Cube and he's all yours. Until then," _the gauntlet thrusters flared brightly in warning, _"…stay out of the way."_

Content, Toni turned to fly back to Loki.

Then she heard a grunt, and faced Thor in time to see his hammer rocket towards her—and knock her past at least three oak trees.

More surprised than upset, and lying in a heap of braches, Toni inspected the damage. The entire chest plate had moderate to severe damage, but the reactor, as always, was fine.

But _holy_ _fuck_ did that hurt her ribs. "Okay then," she muttered, gritting her teeth

Thor's hammer flew back to his hand, and Toni rolled over slowly, getting up at a cautious pace. The god began to swing his weapon in a circle, but he was looking at Loki, and Toni fired a blast from the centerpiece of the suit while he was distracted. She flew towards him and kicked him past the tree he leaned against, which exploded into large splinters of wood and dirt as Thor was thrown backwards.

Toni saw that Thor's giant-ass hammer was knocked aside, but remember that it returned to him when he threw it. She wondered how far he could summon it from. So far, the Mark XII could only react if she was within five miles of it. Toni made a mental note to switch to the Mark VII when she had the chance—it was her tried, true, and renewed battle armor…

Like Toni expected, Thor's hammer returned to his hand, and he held it up to the sky. Lightning struck down and seemed to power up the weapon. Toni frowned, putting the pieces together within a few nanoseconds and realizing what was next.

"_Shit._"

The electricity coursed through the suit, and in vain, Toni put her hand up to block it. It pounded the metal so viciously that she was shoved back about a foot. Heat begin to sink into her skin from the outer shell of the suit, and it reminded her, feverishly, of being half buried in the middle of the desert, a year ago…

_No,_ she snarled to herself, _it's not even uncomfortable in here. _Toni clung to her rationale, and stood her ground. Kind of.

She grunted with the effort to stay upright, and when it was over, the monitor was unusually vivid. JARVIS's voice was garbled in her ears, but intelligible enough.

_~PowEr at fOUr hUnDRed peRcenT CapACity.~_

Toni checked the numbers on the screen, squintng at the brightness. "Well how 'bout that?" she commented quietly. Unceremoniously, she blasted the extra power through the chest piece, hurling Thor back into the forest.

They stopped and stared each other down, before Thor flew into the air and Iron Man followed. When they collided, Toni's thrusters were more powerful, and she dragged Thor through the foliage towards the steep face of the mountain side. She smashed him against the rock, but Thor was strong enough to kick off from the mountainside and throw them both back into the forest.

He must've lost the hammer, because Thor punched Toni directly across the face with his bare fist. It didn't faze her, though her head stung a little from the unforeseen motion, and she swung her right fist towards his face.

Thor was fast; she could give him that. He caught her forearm in his hand, and then blocked her left fist in his other hand. With the suit, Toni was just as physically strong as Thor, but then he began to crush her right forearm and—_fuck he'll pull the armor right off! Shit shit shit ow ow oww—_

She twisted her hand around and blasted him in the face, forcing the god to release her. Grabbing his shirt—or armor, whatever it was—she pulled his head forward and head butted him. Toni's eyes widened when it didn't do anything, and was surprised when he head butted her back, throwing her several feet backwards before she was able to slow down her suit with the thrusters.

She flew back at Thor, and easily seized him from behind to fling him into another tree.

But he was back up in an instant, dodging her punch and knocked the suit on the back to force her onto the ground. Thor's hammer appeared in his hand, and he raised it above his head. Toni was alarmed by his anger.

Was it too late for diplomacy? Toni kind of wished she had held her tongue.

Before he brought it down on her chest, the suit's thrusters powered up and Toni slid away from the thunder god. Looping back around she thruster-power-punched Thor hard in the head towards the ground, but he got back up quickly.

Sheesh, this guy just wouldn't let up, would he?

He raised his hammer and she prepared to fire the chest piece again when something metal and _not_ a hammer knocked Thor's weapon and her arm, attracting their attention as a familiar male voice called, "HEY!"

Oh _great,_ now she'd have to deal with Mr. Righteous. "That's _enough!"_ he said, as if he was in charge. Pff, Toni wasn't going to listen to the Star-Spangled Man. But Toni and Thor watched, motionlessly, as Captain America leap down from the Thor-felled tree he had stood on.

"Now, I don't know what you plan on doing here—"

"I've come here to put an end to Loki's schemes!" Thor said. Toni wondered why he always sounded so angry.

"Then prove it. Put that hammer down." The captain challenged.

Toni doubted this would work. _"Uh, yea—no, bad call he loves his hamm—"_ Aaaand Thor struck her suit back with aforementioned hammer, throwing her back farther than earlier. Damn it, now he really was angry.

"YOU WANT ME TO PUT THE HAMMER DOWN?!" Toni could hear Thor, but all she saw through the foliage was a massive, bright blue explosion of sorts, and a loud crash as Thor fell.

An ephemeral silence, and then the nightly noises returned to the forest as if nothing extraordinary had ever occurred in its midst.

Iron Man stood, and walked towards Captain America and Thor. "Are we done here?" Rogers asked. No one answered, but they all knew their little domestic had ended.

For now.

* * *

As soon as the helicarrier was in sight, Toni was blasting off the jet and circling around the helicarrier. She hadn't bothered taking off the suit after the mishap with Thor, but she needed to make a few repairs while she had the chance. Toni's stuff—as in, her gear, suits and lab—had already been transported to a section of the helicarrier, and JARVIS could guide her to it.

In the solitude of her own area—and by solitude, Toni meant that Fury had sworn that no team member had access to this area—Toni dismantled the suit. _~Miss, I'm afraid my scan for Agent Barton had come too late. He has already stolen a large quantity of Iridium from a facility in Stuttgart, and I cannot locate his current position.~_

Exhaling heavily, Toni forced herself not to think about Clint. That was thin ice, and she would be no help if she plunged into some sort of sentimental nonsense over her friend. Instead, she thought about iridium, and what Thor had mentioned on the jet—that alien army.

Toni glanced at her right forearm, which was red and sore from Thor's crushing grip. It would bruise within the hour. "JARVIS, I'm gonna need to recalibrate these sensors," she stated flatly.

_~I'm afraid that the necessary equipment is not available ~_

Scowling, Toni went over to her suit. If anything, she needed to check if the sensors worked well enough for her to use the Mark XII in a pinch. She was on a giant floating boat—what if someone attacked and she was left falling into the Atlantic, to a watery grave? At this altitude, it would be like hitting concrete.

Staring down her evil-looking faceplate, Toni sharply signaled with her right arm. Pain spiked through her forearm, but then the right gauntlet stirred, powered on, and clamped onto her arm.

After repeating the process with her left arm, Toni removed the armor and the suit pieced itself back together. She examined her right arm. Three dark dots had emerged beneath her skin, internal bleedings.

"Damn it," Toni mumbled, and rolled the sleeves of her skin-tight shirt back down, effectively covering her arms. She seized her RHCP t-shirt, and with it, completely dampened the reactor's glow. Toni was pretty sure that only a few SHIELD people were supposed to know about the reactor, even if Loki knew too. It was just natural for Toni to cover it up, though it wasn't really a secret.

Toni glanced at the bare palms of her hands, and decided she needed some gloves. The helicarrier wasn't exactly toasty, anyway, so she added a grey beanie as well. Who cared if every other person in the helicarrier wore some kind of suit? Toni wasn't a hero; she was a consultant that could dress as casually as she wanted to.

Before she left, she picked an inconspicuous little bot to hack into SHIELD's files with. There was probably some ulterior motive of SHIELD to uncover anyway—there always was, with these people. "JARVIS, give me the feed from whatever Loki's saying to Fury, will you?"

She stuck a bluetooth in her left ear and made her way to where the Avengers were … '_assembled'._

_"The mindless beast… makes play he's still a man,"_ Obviously a jab at Banner. _"How _desperate _are you? You call on such lost creatures to defend you!"_

_"How desperate am I? You threaten my world with war; you steal a force you can't hope to control; you talk about peace and you kill 'cause it's_ fun_."_ Fury was on a roll. Toni couldn't see him, but she had a feeling that the eye patch didn't faze Loki like it did most people.

_"You have made me very desperate. You might not be glad that you did."_

Toni was so lost in what she was listening to that she didn't realize she was walking in the wrong direction until JARVIS interrupted her link and suggested she take an alternative route.

She found the bridge easily enough after that, sliding into a seat while everyone was distracted, listening to Loki's little speech.

Happy with her position, Toni propped her legs up on the glass table, leaning back precariously in her chair. She wondered how long she could balance on three rolling wheels instead of five. With this in mind, she tipped her chair back a centimeter further, still listening to Loki and Fury.

_"…unlimited power, and for what? A _warm light_ for all mankind to share?"_ Toni flinched (minutely) in her seat, and it was enough to send her keeling over — _Damn it, not again—_

Until someone caught her chair, steadying her even though she was literally parallel to the ground. Who—oh. She looked up, and found a pair of absurdly-intense blue eyes shooting her a disapproving look that she'd already caused twice before.

Toni grinned, giving the captain a cheeky little salute as he pulled her chair back into the upright position it was meant to be in. He just shook his head and looked away, but Toni was actually impressed by that move—he'd caught the chair in one hand with ease. She wondered how good his balance was, especially in relation to her multiple attempts to maintain equilibrium in chairs.

But then Toni pushed aside the contemplation for a more imperative one—Loki's conversation. His words sprinted across her mind, like the lead runner in a1500 meter.

"…_and then to be reminded what real power is…"_

Toni yanked the bluetooth away, frowning as she saw what Loki was insinuating. It made her antsy—she was right to hack into SHIELD, and she needed to get to one of their computers for that…

* * *

(Steve)

He watched Loki from the monitor on the table, and stared at the surface of the table thoughtfully after the feed had ended. Bruce Banner fidgeted from a few seats over, where he stood with his arms crossed in discomfort. Steve glanced at Toni Stark again, but she looked completely immersed in her own deliberation.

"He really grows on you, doesn't he?" Bruce commented.

"Like a shitty little fungus," Toni mockingly agreed, not looking up from an insignificant spot on the table. Steve didn't grimace at her language, but that didn't mean he appreciated it.

"Loki's gonna drag this out, so…" Steve looked up to the so-called Norse 'God of Thunder', a large, muscular blond man who was staring at the ground, on the other side of the table. "Thor, what's his play?"

"He has an army, called the Chitauri. They're not of Asgard, or any world known." Thor glanced at the rest of them, and continued. "He means to lead them against your people. They will win him the Earth, in return, I suspect, for the Tessaract."

Steve was attentive—he knew a lot about war. "An army… from outer space." He surmised. The world was supposed to be different, but it seemed to always come back to war.

"So he's building another portal. That's what he needs Eric Selvig for," Dr. Banner realized. Steve recalled that Loki had taken a few of SHIELD's people, put them under a spell of sorts.

"Selvig?" Thor asked, and his tone suggested that he knew the man.

"He's an astrophysicist," the doctor explained.

"He's a friend." Thor looked upset with the news. Steve wondered if there might be more to Loki's actions than just world domination.

"Loki has him under some kind of spell… along with one of ours," Agent Romanoff spoke up, looking distant.

Toni spoke up, finally looking attentive. "Bonnie, your Clyde's been telling Loki about SHIELD." Steve recognized the Bonnie and Clyde reference, but didn't see how it applied. "Why are we keeping him at a _SHIELD facility_ if we don't know how much the guy knows about the Men in Black?"

Steve watched Toni carefully. Loki had made a jab at her on the plane—she'd blown it off, but hadn't denied it. He had a strong feeling that Loki hadn't implied anything about Toni Stark's 'fickle heart' in the ordinary context. But it wasn't the time or place to bring that up even if it bothered Steve, so he let it slide.

The only sign of Romanoff's concern was the slightest quirk of her eyebrow. "Our facility can hold him for long enough for you and Dr. Banner to tract the Cube."

Toni stood up and started strolling around the table, frowning at Agent Romanoff. "C'mon. Even _Loki_ knows that cage wasn't even meant for him." She didn't so much as look at Banner, but the doctor was already looking at his feet.

"But while I'm on the subject, doc," she turned to smile at Bruce, "I'm a huge fan of how you lose control and turn into a gigantic green rage monster," her smile looked a little more wicked now, but still humorous.

Banner managed a half-hearted "thanks" and took his seat while Toni kept circling them. It was getting a little annoying, because Steve couldn't keep turning to face her.

"I want to know why Loki let us take him in the first place," Steve pointed out, bringing back Toni's main point since she seemed to have digressed. "He's not leading an army from here."

"I… don't think we should be focusing on Loki," Dr. Banner admitted, "The guy's brain's a bag full of cats, you can smell the crazy on him."

"Have care how you speak, Loki is beyond reason but he is of Asgard," Thor interrupted, giving Dr. Banner a look of warning. "And he is my brother."

"He killed eighty people in two days," Romanoff answered back, not looking up from her thoughtful gaze directed at no one in particular.

"He's adopted," Thor replied, a little less enthusiastically.

There was pause, before Dr. Banner went on. "I think it's about the mechanics. Iridium, what do they need the iridium for?"

"It's a stabilizing agent," Toni answered, coming to a stop at the bridge, where a few glass screens were set up. Steve noted how Agent Hill refused to take her eyes off of Stark.

She looked at the screens with interest, and then turned back to Steve and the rest of the team. "It means the portal won't collapse on itself like it did at SHIELD." She strolled to the front of the table, and spoke to Thor, "No hard feelings, Point Break," she added on an afterthought, patting his bicep. "You've got a mean swing."

As she said this, Toni rubbed at her arm. Steve wondered if it was cold in the Helicarrier—she was just as small as Agent Romanoff, and wore an unusual amount of clothing for May. She was also wearing gloves, which just perplexed Steve because he was pretty sure there was no need for them.

"Also," the Toni continued, leaning against the railing beside one of SHIELD's computers, "it means the portal can open as wide, and stay open as long, as Loki wants." She craned her head to look at the screens, and then looked around at all the SHIELD workers on their own computers.

"Ahem—that man is playing _Galaga!_ Thought we wouldn't notice… but, we did." Toni pointed vaguely towards the far right corner of the room, and a few heads turned in that direction. Steve did as well, but couldn't see anything. But he didn't know what 'Galaga' was anyway.

Stark frowned at the screens in front of her, covering her left eye for a moment, "How does Fury even see these?" she wondered.

"He turns," Agent Hill replied frankly, and Steve noticed the disapproving look on her face hadn't changed for the past five minutes.

"Sounds exhausting… the rest of the raw materials, AgentBarton can get his hands on pretty easily. Anyway, only major component he needs to look around for is a power source," she was fiddling with the glass screens now.

Steve was a little envious of how easily she did that—the first glass gadget Coulson handed to him, he shattered almost instantly. "Of high energy density—" she turned towards Steve and the others, snapping her fingers in an example of something quick, "Something to kick start the cube."

Well, Steve sort of understood that. But Agent Hill wasn't impressed. "When did _you_ become an expert in thermonuclear astrophysics?" she challenged.

Toni jammed her gloved hands into her pockets. "Few nights ago. The packet—Selvig's notes. The extraction theory papers—hey, am I the only one did the homework?"

Steve didn't want Toni ramble on, because that's what it seemed she was going to do. "Does Loki need a particular _kind_ of power source?"

"Loki would need to heat the cube to twenty million Kelvin just to break through the Coulomb barrier," Bruce explained—unhelpfully, in Steve's opinion. Who the heck was Kelvin?

On Steve's other side, Toni held up her hand, "Unless…? Selvig has figured out how to stabilize the quantum-tunneling effect," she wandered past Steve, towards Banner.

"Well, if he could do that, he could achieve heavy ion fusion at any reactor on the planet," Bruce admitted, and Toni sighed in relief.

"Finally, someone who speaks English," she grinned at Banner and shook his hand.

"Is that what just happened?" Steve asked aloud, unashamed that most of what Stark and Banner said had gone right over his head.

"Lemme make it clear that Dr. Banner is _only_ here to track the cube," Director Fury came in at last, challenging Toni with his good eye. "I was hoping you might join him, Stark."

"You can start with that stick of his—it may be magical, but it works a lot like a HYDRA weapon," Steve couldn't help but glance around; hoping someone knew what he was getting at. He didn't show it, but he was disappointed with the lack of response.

"I don't know about that, but it is powered by the cube," Fury replied, "And I'd like to know how Loki used it to turn two of the sharpest men I know into his personal flying monkeys."

"Monkeys?" Thor said in a serious voice. "I do not understand—"

"I do!" Steve interrupted, picking up his head. He heard someone sigh from his left side, and glanced at Toni Stark, who was rolling her dark brown eyes at him. "I… I understood that reference."

"Shall we play, doc?" Toni suggested teasingly, grinning at Banner, and the two of them left.

* * *

(Toni)

"The gamma readings are definitely consistent with Dr. Selvig's reports for the Tessaract, but it's going to take weeks to process," Banner said aloud for Toni's benefit. She was only half-listening, looking at a Starktech monitor on the other side of the lab.

"If we bypass their mainframe and get a direct route, we can clock this in at about… six hundred teraflops." Toni pressed a button on the screen and strode towards where Banner was standing.

He chuckled lightly, "All I packed was a toothbrush," he commented, eyeing the computer.

She grinned. Toni appreciated Banner the most out of the rest of the 'Avengers', and it wasn't for the green monster he occasionally transformed into. He was smart, and he could keep up with her. Who wouldn't respect that?

Therefore, she didn't really think about what she was asking when she said, "You know, you should come by Stark Tower—the top ten floors are all R & D, you'd love it, it's candy land." What Toni _was_ thinking about was the fact that she needed to see just how much control Banner had. Of course, she _knew_ he had control, but she wanted to _see_ that.

"Uh, thanks, but last time I was in New York, I kind of broke… Harlem," Banner said, fidgeting as he glanced towards her before quickly averting his eyes to the screen in front of him. Twirling with the electrical device in her fingers, Toni leaned towards Banner to get a better look at the gamma readings.

"Well, I promise a stress-free environment," Toni lied through her teeth, but noticed that Banner physically relaxed when she stepped away. "No tension, no surprises—" she walked around banner and jabbed him with the electric screwdriver.

"_Ow._" Banner exclaimed, putting a hand on his side and looking at Toni incredulously. She scrutinized his face, barely hearing the indignant "Hey!" from outside the lab.

"Nothing?" she asked, equally surprised, just as the Star-Spangled Man came in asking, "Are you nuts?"

Banner went back to his work, so Toni quipped to Rogers, "Jury's out," before glancing at the doctor again. "You've really got a lid on it, don't you?" she was kind of impressed. "What's your secret—mellow jazz, bongo drums, a huge bag of weed, maybe all three?"

"Is everything a joke to you?" Rogers asked, a condescending look in his blue eyes. She seemed to be getting that a lot from him, and it kind of irked her.

Toni kept herself from scowling by waving the electric device at Rogers, and explaining, "Funny things are."

"Endangering the lives of everyone on this ship isn't funny. No offense, doc." Toni held up her hands in a gesture of 'no harm', but she wasn't sure if someone from the _forties _knew what it meant.

Banner agreed, saying, "Yeah, it—it's alright, I wouldn't have come aboard if I couldn't handle… pointy things."

Toni shook her head, "You're tip-toeing and you need to strut," she said honestly. Couldn't he see that?

"And _you_ need to focus on the problem, Ms. Stark." Rogers said sternly. What? When did she become 'Ms. Stark' to him? She didn't like that for some reason.

Toni gave him a defiant glare. "You think I'm _not?"_ She clenched her jaw, frustrated with Steve Rogers's strict-mother look. He didn't understand _shit_ about SHIELD. She scooped up a packet of freeze-dried blueberries (definitely NOT to stall), and then proposed her questions.

"Why do you think Fury called us in? Why _now_? Why not before? What isn't he telling us? I—I can't do the _equation_ without all the _variables_." It had been eating her since Coulson had approached her. Maybe not all of it—because Loki's little speech stirred up a shit-storm of concerns—but Toni knew that she'd need answers sooner than later.

Rogers looked slightly mollified with her response, but now he was even more serious with her resulting questions. "You think Fury's hiding something?" he asked, but it _totally_ was a dangerous, loaded question. On one hand, Captain Asshole could be asking this to find out if Toni was a threat to SHIELD's security (which she was, but still) and immediately warn Fury. Or, he could just be wondering where she stood on the authority of SHIELD (unlikely). Or maybe the captain was honestly curious.

Maybe Toni was overthinking this, but she didn't really trust unfrozen American icons from the forties. Either way, she needed to get her opinion out there. Who cares what Captain America thinks? Not Toni Stark.

"He's a spy, Apple Pie." Ooh, that rhymed. "He's _the _spy! His secrets have secrets. He had Clint Barton pose as a personal assistant to me for two months to _assess_ me after I came back from the Middle East." She picked a few blueberries to eat before going on, coming back to her main point. "He spies on you too, Banner," she pointed out.

Banner shook his head, fidgeting again. "Uh, I just want to finish my work here, and…"

"Doctor?" the captain asked, giving Banner a grave look. Toni speculated whether or not Rogers would ever truly defrost—so far, he'd been all cold and severe, _all the time_.

Banner sighed, and took off his glasses. "'A warm light for all mankind,' Loki's jab at Fury about the cube," Rogers nodded, and Toni was impressed by Bruce once again. She hadn't realized anyone else picked up on that.

"I heard it," Rogers encouraged him.

Banner gestured to Toni, and nodded when he saw that she already knew what he was saying. "I think that was meant for you," Toni looked away, hiding her concern for whatever Loki was planning by holding out the bag of blueberries to Banner instead. Who knew that blueberries were such a good distraction?

Bruce grabbed a few from the proffered packet and went on, "Even if Barton didn't tell Loki about the tower, it was still all over the news," Banner pointed out.

"The Stark Tower? That big, ugly—" Toni raised an eyebrow at Rogers, amused by his honesty, "…building in New York?" Toni swear she saw him smile a little—holy crap! He wasn't a robot like Bonnie and Agent Phil after all. Too bad he was insulting Toni. She didn't like that.

"It's powered by an arc-reactor—a self-sustaining energy source," Banner explained. Toni let him do it, because Rogers seemed willing to listen to the doctor more. She rubbed at her own arc-reactor self-consciously, before quickly occupying her hands with her bag of blueberries before someone noticed. "That building will run itself for what—a year?"

Toni shrugged, "It's just the prototype," her brown eyes flickered to Rogers, who wasn't putting the pieces together just yet. "I'm the only name in clean energy right now, that's what he's getting at."

"So… why didn't they bring her in on the Tessaract project?" Banner asked, "What are they doing in the energy business in the first place?" Toni hated it when people went behind her back. _The last time that happened, my company had been selling weapons… under the table… _Her thought trailed off, and Toni was startled at the conclusion she'd come to.

_Weapons._ _What the hell, Fury?_ Toni thought angrily. "_Unlimited power". HYDRA created _weapons_ when they had "unlimited power". _She set down the blueberries and leaned against the table, only to yelp in shock when her electric screwdriver electrocuted her.

"Ow!" she scowled at the device and turned it off before checking her hand.

"Ms. Stark?" Rogers asked in concern, and she gave him a skeptical look before glaring at her hand again. Banner didn't say anything, but she had a feeling he was laughing at her misfortune. Why did everyone have fun at her expense?

"Never mind—I heard Loki talk to Fury, and I heard when you, Captain, mentioned HYDRA's weapons." She gave him an imploring look, and he didn't seem to catch her drift.

"HYDRA? Yeah, they were using the cube the same way Loki's glowing stick uses it." Rogers agreed, understanding the situation for once. Toni chewed her lip, conflicted.

"I… uh…Cap," Toni frowned to herself as she gathered her thoughts. "Run it by me again—what happened the _last_ time some sort of shady government organization got their hands on a source of quote-unquote _unlimited power_? The same source, in fact?"

She watched Steve realize what she was saying, and his doubtful look morphed into something akin to shock. "Ms. Stark, you think _SHIELD's_ making weapons?" he asked her quickly, not entirely convinced. Or rather, he didn't _want_ to be convinced.

Damn ignorance, making people feel all warm and fuzzy while other humans are being blown up…

Toni threw up her hands again, annoyed by his lack of knowledge. "Captain, do you have _any _idea about the pandemonium I caused last year when I decided that Stark Industries would no longer be a _weapons manufacturing company_? SHIELD didn't come to me about the Tessaract because _I'm_ not going to make weapons for them, especially not powered by _that!_"

Now, Toni was certain that Rogers finally saw what she and Banner saw. At least he wasn't lecturing her anymore. "You don't have proof of any of that, though," he said finally, but Toni knew he understood her point.

"I've been running my decryption program since I hit the bridge; I'll know all of SHIELD's dirty secrets within a few hours." Toni replied, taking out her smart phone to check her progress.

"And yet you wonder why they didn't want you around?" Rogers accused her, but Toni rolled her eyes, reminding herself to use her words, not her pathetically-mortal fists against a supersoldier.

"An intelligence organization that fears the intelligent? Historically, not awesome." Toni shrugged. "Coulson came to me, I'd already turned Fury down by then. They _knew_ what they were getting into when they asked for my help."

"I think Loki's trying to wind us up. This is a man who wants a war, and if we don't stay focused he'll succeed." Rogers stated, trying not to think about the alternative.

Toni watched his expression carefully; after all Captain America had been through, there was no way he could ignore the possibility that SHIELD was making weapons.

But Toni saw the value in stopping this argument. If he doubted her one more time Toni knew she would fight back—literally. Who cares if he was genetically superior to her? Toni could definitely slap him if she wanted to, and it would probably be more degrading than zapping him with that electric screwdriver thing, though that _was_ a nice alternative.

"Yeah well, you interrupted _us_, actually…" Toni sneered at him, gesturing towards the door. Incredibly able-bodied men were a distraction to Toni, and useless in a lab anyway. Rogers seemed to figure that much out—probably in kinder words—and sighed at Toni before leaving.

"Just find the cube."

She fantasized about hurling a few blueberries in his direction. Or maybe a screwdriver.

* * *

**It's too bad there's no interaction between Tony and Thor in the movie. I might add something to this fic to make up for the movie. **

**By the way, I'm leaning towards Stony, but there may not be any pairings at all for this. It depends on how far I go - into an AU battle, and beyond what's covered in the movie. Ooh, would you guys like for me to go into Iron Man 3? You wouldn't have to see the movie for it to make sense, because if I go that far with this, it'll be completely AU.**

**To my followers: I love you all, I encourage you to keep reading (duh), but could you maybe possible leave a comment? I want to keep y'all around, but I can't do that without some feedback on what you like about this story!**


	7. Toni Stark Problems

**I just can't fit in Thor! Ugh, maybe the next chapter he'll come in to save Toni from... *cough cough*,_ someone's gonna attack her..._**

**Ch. 7 - Toni Stark Problems**

* * *

"So… why India, Banner?" Toni asked, not looking up from her holographic screen. She needed some conversation. It'd been only a few minutes since Asshole Rogers had left, and her mind was still sprinting—when your thoughts were angry, it's not good to dwell on them.

To deter her increasing anger, Toni focused on Bruce Banner.

Every time he spoke, Bruce took off his glasses. She wondered if he actually needed them, because the Hulk didn't wear glasses. "Hm? Oh," the glasses came off. "I just… wanted to do something good. Well-removed from this type of… situation…"

"Bruce, you don't really believe that you won't be suiting up like the rest of us." Toni didn't leave any room for doubt. She'd told him this in India as well. "But hey—maybe the big guy can do some good here too."

But the doctor shook his head, focusing on the glass screen with a consternated expression. "You don't understand. When I'm out there, it's a nightmare."

She could accept that. Being forced to use the Iron Man suit—because her friend was trying to kill her, because terrorists were trying to kill her, because some guy with a grudge against her father was trying to kill her—was terrifying as well.

"I'm exposed… like a nerve." Toni wasn't great at subtext, but even she could understand that this wasn't his favorite topic. She could understand that too—half of the time she used the suit, she depleted the stupid device powering an electromagnet in her chest that was keeping tiny bits of metal from tearing up her atrial septum. So yeah, you could call it being exposed—not that Toni liked to acknowledge that.

She leaned on the counter Bruce was working at, watching him with a subtle, thoughtful expression. "I said it before—you've got to own it." Toni scanned a few more readings, and then returned her gaze to the doctor.

Bruce rolled his eyes without even turning to her. "There's nothing to own, it's just… rage, and destruction. What good can come from that?"

"I read the report, about the lab accident." She didn't pause, but noted Banner's momentary flinch. "That amount of gamma radiation? It should've _killed_ you."

Toni chewed on her lip, considering what to say (should she mention the reactor?) as Bruce raised an eyebrow. "What, so you're saying that the Hulk—the other guy—saved my life?"

When she shrugged, Bruce's eyes remained skeptical. "That's nice. A nice sentiment. Saved it for what?"

Looking at him playfully, Toni smiled slightly. "Guess we'll find out, huh?

"Why did you make the suit?" Bruce asked suddenly, fixing Toni with an analyzing gaze too much like her own for comfort.

This was not good, because Toni had already convinced herself by the point in the conversation to keep that little bit about herself quiet.

The entire _world_ knew that Toni Stark had built a weaponized suit that ran on new technology and an improved source of energy. Most of the world already suspected that Toni herself was the one operating it. And, the world knew that Stark Industries was the first big name in clean, self-sustaining energy—arc reactor technology—now that SI had stop supplying the military.

But the world had skipped over that tiny detail of her experience in Afghanistan, where Toni had been shot full of shrapnel. She hadn't told anyone about the electromagnet besides Pepper Potts, who had helped her replace the reactor once. Some people (Fury, Coulson) knew it existed, knew it was a part of her now—Barton never knew about the shrapnel, only the palladium—but Toni would never admit to the copious amounts of chlorophyll she chugged daily for her health because of it.

"I was a little jumpy after my three-month stint in Afghanistan. Thought I'd build myself some better protection. Turned out a bit more righteous than intended," Toni answered flippantly.

In a way, that was exactly what happened. Just… not in that order.

Bruce eyed her, observing her in that intelligent way only a scientist could. Like an experiment. Ugh, it was uncomfortable. "I'd tell you how it works, but that's kind of a trade secret," she added mysteriously.

Banner watched her hesitantly, and then stared off into the empty space of thought, humming in ambiguous agreement.

* * *

There wasn't much more for Toni and Bruce to do in the lab at this point—their sensors and shit were all calibrated and tracking the cube's signal, and it wouldn't be located until after dawn.

While Bruce left to catch some sleep, Toni… didn't.

She found herself back at the bridge, rolling around in a chair as Fury gave orders to Agent Romanoff—the Widow was going to 'question' Loki. Toni would've gone too, but they weren't trying to seduce him, so it wouldn't be any fun. And Loki was creepy, so that took away a few brownie points despite his awesome body.

Thor was there too—doing absolutely nothing—so Toni could ogle at him instead if she wanted to.

Fury left, and Romanoff took a moment to steel herself. Or that's what it looked like.

"Hey Shirley, you got a sec?" Toni asked suddenly, eyeing Romanoff. There were only three people who could hear her—Natasha, Thor and Agent Hill, but Agent Hill was a bitchy ninja from Canada so she didn't count.

Toni hopped up from her seat and strolled into the hallway, making faces at any SHIELD agent that passed so they would avoid her. She didn't hear Natasha follow, but assumed that she would—when Toni turned, it was to face the Russian face to face.

"What is it, Stark?" Natasha demanded in a terse voice.

Toni pointed a finger at the assassin. "That, right there."

"What?"

"Did I hurt your feelings? Do you want to hug it out over ice cream?"

"Stark, I don't—"

"You're upset with me. What did I do to ruffle the great Black Widow's feathers?" Toni demanded.

And there—she saw it. A little spasm of Natasha's dark red eyebrow, a twitch of her lip too. Toni was spot on. But she needed to know what changed.

"Let it out, Bonnie." Toni advised her.

And then Natasha punched her in the face.

* * *

**To my lovely reviewers:**

**So far, Stony's been getting positive reviews - I put up a poll (I think) on my profile about the pairings, so if you're too lazy to review, just vote for Stony there (or BrucexToni, ThorxTony?, etc).**

**Kup of Koko: You're the coolest person on this site. You review all the time, and you're always so positive - thank yo so much for your support!**

**Meota Tsukiko: You reviewed chapter 2, but I haven't gotten around to responding until now, so sorry for that. But I liked what you said about Clint; his relationship with Toni is actually a main reason for her involvement in SHIELD, so thank you for that recommendation (and yeah, he'll totally be a big brother).**

**mamamittens: Thank you! About chapter 4 - I've seen 'mother load' and 'mother lode' written before, but you cold be right about that spelling. As you can see, my grammar/spelling isn't flawless, because I am un-beta'ed. Oh well. As long as I'm coherent!**

**Booklover2526: I'm glad you want me to go into IM3! I've also considered alluding to the rest of the Marvel word (ie X-Men, Agents of SHIELD stuff, etc), but I'll wait till I finish the Avengers movie first.**

**Emily (Guest): I hope you know that your support means the world to me! I'm flattered (and my ego has swelled to about Toni-Stark-size), so thank you for your review. I'm seriously considering more Stony (Stoni?), and I'm very excited to see where I can take this story.**

**random girl (Guest): I addressed Toni's 'secret identity' in this chapter. Sort of. Do you get what I mean? I hope I was clear. She's not hiding from the team, but there's still a lot about her that she's unwilling to admit despite people noticing some of her odd habits (fear of water, health shakes, etc).**

**Blacksash: Hey! Well, what so you know! Another chapter. I'm very irregular when it comes to updates, haha. Sorry this is short, but I need to recover after that monster chapter. Thank you for reviewing, I'd love to hear more.**

**Whew! Glad I got that out. I'll try to respond to review regularly from now on, because you people deserve it fro being so awesome and supportive. **

**Laters!**


	8. Lady Stark's Sorcery

**I know, Natasha's out of character, but I'm trying my best to explain her actions logically. I admit it—I just needed someone to punch Toni Stark because all versions of Tony Stark deserve a punch in the face sometime in life. **

**BTW, the reviewers ask for Steve/Toni, but the poll on my profile says that _5 people_ want Bruce/Toni, and _4 people_ want Steve/Toni. (And 1 for Thor/Toni, which I admit, I would love to see, but I have my reservations about writing). **

**I value reviews more than poll votes, but I would like to see what ALL of you think about the pairings, so… **

**Review AND vote. That's not _too_ much to ask for, right?**

* * *

_"Did I hurt your feelings? Do you want to hug it out over ice cream?"_

_"Stark, I don't—"_

_"You're upset with me. What did I do to ruffle the great Black Widow's feathers?" Toni demanded._

_And there—she saw it. A little spasm of Natasha's dark red eyebrow, a twitch of her lip too. Toni was spot on. But she needed to know what changed._

_"Let it out, Bonnie." Toni advised her._

_And Natasha punched her in the face_

* * *

This wasn't the first time that Toni had been struck across the face, but she had always _expected_ it, because it usually came from angry girlfriends the morning after a party. Also, she expected a strike on her cheek or nose, not—

"_OW! _Fuck_—_why the _ear?_"

Toni was bent over in pain (and definitely not cowering from an assassin feebly), and clutched at her ear. "Is it bleeding? I think you ruptured my eardrum." That had only happened once before, when that mortar took her out in Afghanistan.

But Toni steeled herself, and risked a glance up at Natasha.

"Oh, fuck you," Toni spat, noticing the woman's amused look. "Mind using your _words_ instead of your fists?" Toni suggested bravely. "I understand if you want to forego the ice cream, the calories alone make me cringe," she added, though her conscience (which sounded like Pepper) was telling her to _shut the fuck up before you die._

Natasha's expression had gone cold once more, but Toni wouldn't give up. That little act conveyed a lot about Natasha, albeit through bodily harm and scary looks.

And then, just as Toni looked away from the assassin, Natasha lashed out again—Toni tensed for another blow—and seized her forearm. Then, Toni was being dragged farther into the depths of SHIELD's maze of hallways, surely to a mysterious, unreachable place so that Natasha could find a nice quiet place to murder a billionaire.

So she didn't bother trying to figure out where they were—Toni was never going to make it off this ship alive. Natasha yanked her into a foreign room, and shut the door. She blinked rapidly when the spy turned the light on.

A closet.

Toni hadn't realized these things still _existed_.

"Whoa, Bonnie, I didn't think you swung that wa—"

"Shut up," Natasha snarled, and Toni shut up. "You want to know why I'm upset with you?" she demanded.

Something told Toni that she was not going to leave without further bodily harm, and that she could not weasel her way out of the conversation before Natasha got whatever this was off her mind.

Believing it was the option that would cause her less pain, Toni nodded.

_"Because you disobeyed my orders."_ Natasha hissed out. "India—it was _my mission_, you follow _my rules_, and when Banner showed up you compromised nearly _every aspect_ of the objective."

Each word was said so bitingly; Toni wished that Natasha would yell instead. Yet, at the same time, Toni wondered if there was more to it than just Toni ruining Natasha's plan (hadn't she done that to Rogers, too? Pff. Irrelevant).

When Banner had yelled, to see how they'd react… Well, Toni freaked out, so she fell over (No shame in the truth, right?).

Natasha, on the other hand, reached for her gun. Was that an assassin's way of freaking out? It sounded quite plausible to Toni.

Aw, crap. Toni probably distracted Natasha too, with all that talk about her and Barton before meeting Banner (they were definitely together, Toni wouldn't believe otherwise).

…Holy shit, Toni Stark compromised the Black Widow with _girl talk_?

_Don't laugh, she'll kill you. Don't laugh, don't laugh—it's only funny to you, shut up Toni, it might not be true._

"You don't really know me, do you?" Toni responded, quelling her hysterical emotions for the moment. She honestly didn't want to die by angry Russian assassin—though that was a pretty respectable way to go.

Romanoff scowled, and then her face smoothed out of all expression once more. Toni rubbed at her ear as the redhead spoke. "Only what Barton and Coulson have told me. You were _recommended_."

"I wasn't recommended for whatever you _expected_ me to be recommended for, though," Toni explained, wondering if that sentence made any sense at all. Whatever. She moved on. "You were right, I _do _work well with Banner, and bringing me to talk to him wasn't a mistake."

Romanoff leaned against a shelf with her arms crossed; one of her eyebrows rose to challenge that statement.

"But I don't work well with your… _organization_. Government secrets and espionage? That doesn't fly with me. Never will." Toni held her tongue, remembering whom she was talking to. It wouldn't help her situation to admit to hacking into SHIELD's database with a virus to break down their firewall.

(She'd made that mistake already, and now she wanted to punch Captain America's perfect face and _now,_ she was getting distracted, _Toni stop it!)_

"It's why I declined my first invitation to the boy band; Fury's the lead singer. _And_ it's why I kind of spilled the beans to Banner. He knew most of what I told him anyway—no point in trying to euphemize the conditions," Toni went on, trying to keep her mind on-task.

She could see the minute differences in Romanoff's appearance as Natasha began to understand. Her shoulders lowered a few millimeters; her fingers were lax around her arms. Also, Natasha wasn't glaring anymore.

"He respects you for that," Natasha commented finally. "But when you established yourself as a friend, he'll see me as an enemy."

Ah. They weren't talking about Banner anymore.

"Banner knows you're not, though. You're just doing your job. And he'll be in there, somewhere, if the other guy comes out." Toni was just theorizing, but she was pretty sure of this. "Besides—you're the Black Widow. You're about to interrogate an alien with a god-complex and a terrible sense of fashion. Just keep doing your thing, Shirley."

Not her best advice, but what else could Toni do? How are you supposed to console a spy that blames you for possibly setting the Hulk on said spy so that she feels less inclined to kill you?

Fortunately, Romanoff didn't seem to need much consolation from Toni at this point. She rolled her eyes at Toni's advice, and picked herself up from the shelf. "Right, I should get going. And no, Toni, I'm not going to seduce him, so you can't come."

Toni stared for a moment, praying that this wasn't a trick and that maybe Toni was going to live to fight another day—then she grinned, because _the Black Widow_ was joking with _Toni Stark. _

"I'll be cheering you on, Shirley. Break a leg." Natasha smirked (Holy shit, did that just happen?) and opened the closet door in one graceful move.

Toni trailed behind the assassin, looking around at their new environment. The storage closet's door was just as plain as every other door, so she wondered how Natasha knew which was which. And what else did those doors lead to? SHIELD agents sleeping quarters? Or was there a helicopter that ferried people home every evening? That would be a little conspicuous.

"You know, for a moment I thought you were dragging me into SHIELD's depths to kill me, Bonnie," Toni admitted, examining the uniform colors and dizzyingly similar hallways she'd passed.

"Bonnie?"

Natasha didn't answer, and Toni's mind began launching profanities through her brain. And through the hallways. Natasha had just ninja'ed her way out and left Toni to die in the bowels of the helicarrier.

"Damn it."

* * *

Toni made it out in fifteen minutes, but that didn't mean she wasn't exhausted and terrified of assassins popping out of storage closets to murder her.

"Are you in need of assistance, milady?" A deep baritone inquired. Toni looked forward, and was met with a large, armored chest and a pair of arms that could probably squeeze the life out of a boa constrictor.

She looked up, a recognized the face of that blonde alien surfer guy. "Oh, hey there Point Break, how are you enjoying your stay at Hotel Helicarrier? Personally, I think this place sucks." Toni glared at the monitor while she said this; she could see Natasha 'interrogating' Loki from the screen.

The big guy looked between Toni and the screen. "Did you and Lady Romanoff quarrel?" Of all the things he could have asked…

Toni frowned at Thor. "We've come to a compromise," Toni said evasively. Natasha would sometimes leave Toni to fend for herself, but other than that, they were good. "And don't call me 'milady', bro. I'm not from Winterfell."

"I have not heard of such a land," Thor mused, looking at Toni with (uncomfortably) curious eyes. "You are the human that commands the metal armor?" he asked, deciding not to inquire where 'Winterfell' was—this relieved Toni, because she had no intentions of explaining a fantasy novel to an alien.

She mulled over his phrasing—that was probably the most accurate description of her yet. No one else could control her armor without her reactor, excluding Rhodey and War Machine.

"I built it, I operate it," Toni acknowledged.

"But no one _else _can operate such a machine," Thor interjected, with a tone somewhere between solemn and puzzled.

Any thought that was crossing Toni's mind came to an immediate halt. And she stared at the alien, disregarding any pretense of civility they'd established. "Pardon?" Toni responded, forcing her voice to remain flippant and obnoxiously cheery.

Thor gestured to Toni's chest. "Asgardians are more sensitive to sorcery than humans. My brother's grasp of the art is keener than most. But even _I_ can feel its power."

At Thor's quasi-explanation, Toni's fingers stopped burrowing into her forearms—which were already sore—and she nodded. "Oh. Well. It's not sorcery, it's just a source of energy." Toni's voice died down as she realized that Thor's idea of sorcery was probably closer to science than magic.

They were quiet for a moment, and Toni was about to make up an excuse to leave when Thor spoke again. "It sustains your machinery's might. Do you wield it so… because it does the same for you?"

"...Uh," Toni answered eloquently.

Jesus fucking _Christ. _She had _not _expected to have this conversation with an Asgardian Prince of all the fucking people on this fucking ship.

And yet, Toni… didn't really mind. She didn't really know Thor (he was an _alien_), but that also meant that Thor had no reason to use this information against her.

"Yeah," Toni confessed, hating how faint her voice was now. So Toni cleared her throat and changed the topic. "Speaking of my awesome machinery, I'll need to set some ground rules if we ever go for round two—no crushing Toni's arms."

As she spoke, Toni took an inventory of her injuries. Natasha's bony knuckle had smashed her left ear; Thor mutilated her right arm, and lightly bruised half her ribs with his stupid hammer.

Well, Toni supposed she would live.

"I must apologize for my actions. I let my emotions run rampant, and I forgot myself in the heat of battle," Thor confessed immediately.

Toni stared at the man before her. His shoulders were slumped in failure, and his face was turned to the floor. He spoke with such sincere regret that Toni felt like she'd done something wrong and needed to apologize too. Oh god, she was getting all mushy. Toni was pretty sure that her instincts were telling her to hug a six-foot four-inch blonde alien-god.

As much fun as _that _would be, Toni resisted. Instead, she patted Thor on his massive, muscular bicep in consolation. "I said no hard feelings, didn't I?" she grinned back, "It's okay if you got a little excited. I have that effect on people."

Toni backed away as she said this, grinning wider. Before Thor worked through what she meant, Toni slipped away to a slightly-more-familiar hallway, back to the lab. She didn't have anything to do, but Toni felt safer from a ninja ambush when she had her screwdriver.

After all, Toni wasn't entirely sure if Natasha was out for her blood or not. She kept giving Toni mixed signals.

* * *

**To my lovely reviewers:**

**Booklover2526: Ooh, I'd love to bring X-Men into this. Wolverine is probably the reason I love Marvel so much now - I never read any comics when I was younger, so my first experience with comic book super heros was the first X-Men movies. Anyway, if I brought in any X-Men characters, I'd definitely do some research to make it real. **

**ramblingrambler: How's my grammar doing? I think this chapter was pretty solid. And on Natasha's actions - **this is _Toni's_ point of view intentionally, so I could leave a little leeway in regards to Natasha's feelings (because who the HELL knows what the Black Widow thinks about?). I did this because I have no idea if my logic is actually logical when it comes to the behavior/thought/experience psychological triangle. And yes, I just made that up. Anyway, thanks for being a boss and reviewing my last chapter!**

**Blacksash: I definitely wrote in 'Toni baiting Natasha' just so I could have someone punch Toni in the face. Haha... is it bad that I got a kick out of my fictional character's deserved pain? hm. Well, thank you for reviewing.**

**Fyby: As long as I have readers to nag me about more chapters (or rather, encourage me to venture out into the AU world beyond the Avengers movie), I plan to keep writing this story. It's so much fun. Thank you for your review!**

**random girl: Hey, did you like how I stuck Thor into the mix? Pretty similar to what you suggested - thank you for that, btw - and there might be some panic after the battle because of what Thor knows, but that really just depends on how everything plays out... ;)  
I kind of wish there was a cat fight, but honestly, I don't think Toni would have made it out alive. Like you said, Natasha is an assassin, and Toni knows it. Thanks for reviewing!**

**Guest: Um, well, I think I answered your question already. I appreciate that you reviewed, though!**

**Ranger Belle: Your review made me laugh, but I think you got a few phrases mixed up. And don't worry, I'm still leaning towards Stony (Stoni?). Anyway, thank you for your review!**

**Kup of Koko: Keep reviewing! I love it. I know you (and everyone else) were interested in knowing what happened between Natasha and Toni, so hope I didn't disappoint! And I snuck in a bit about the arc reactor - between Toni and THOR, the blonde demigod with fiiine arms. I'd say that I meant to surprise the readers, but I think I alluded to it in an earlier author's note, haha. Anyway - you are amazing. I'd marry you, but that would be creepy. Thank you for reviewing.**

**BatfamilyFan01: What makes you say Toni/Thor? I'm not sure it's really an option for this story (after this chapter), but I'm definitely interested in knowing how that would play out. Thanks for reviewing!**

**Dragones: Oh dear, you didn't die, right? I can only type so fast :) Thanks for your ultimatum review. **


	9. Uncharacteristic

**Oh my god, I love you all. I lost my phone and then I just checked my reviews for the first time since posting the last chapter and I had a bunch of long-winded, thoughtful and supportive reviews and I'm still squealing.**

**I present:**

**Ch. 9 - Uncharacteristic **

* * *

It was dawn by the time SHIELD's systems had detected Toni's virus, and by then it was far too late. Toni and Ban… Toni and _Bruce_ were already looking through the HYDRA weapons files, and the models being drawn up for newer weapons. It was called Phase Two.

"You were completely right, Ms. Stark," Bruce admitted; he was impressed, but he was more concerned with what Phase Two entailed. Toni knew it was more important.

"Of course I was right. I wish I wasn't, but that's the curse of intelligence," Toni muttered distractedly, flipping through the digital file with a frown. "By the way, you can call me Toni."

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Bruce smile. "Toni," he repeated, nodding to himself. "Was I just upgraded to a friend for admitting you were right?" he asked suspiciously.

"No, Bruce, you went from associate to colleague." Toni clarified.

Bruce paused, giving Toni an annoyed look. "Those are synonyms."

"Now you're back to _socio_, Banner." Bruce rolled his eyes at her. "And I think the Tessaract needs to be returned to Blondie's people."

Bruce rubbed his eyes, his glasses forgotten on the table. He still took them off whenever he wanted to speak. "I agree, we should talk to Thor. But I have to ask; why don't you use their real names, Toni?"

Using nicknames gave Toni the distance she needed to stay comfortable around these people. When someone thinks that Toni was comfortable with being closer, they tended to want to know more about her, which lead to Toni feeling uncomfortable around them. She had enemies, after all.

Not that she would tell this to Bruce. She liked her distance, remember?

"Hey, I worked hard on those. Spangles, Point Break—don't get me started on Romanoff," Toni's eyes were glued to the transparent screen, and she watched Fury enter the lab.

"Just what do you think you're doing, Ms. Stark?" Fury strode in, and Toni was a little annoyed that he had complete access to this lab. Then again, he _was_ the director. She wondered what kind of control the World Security Council must have. They could be watching this right now like the Thought Police. Did they confer with Heimdall? _Back to the matter at hand, Toni._

"Uh, I've kinda been wondering the same about you," Toni answered distractedly, pulling up as much info on Phase Two as possible so everyone could see. Right now it was only Fury, Bruce and Toni, but the others would come.

"You're supposed to be looking for the Tessaract," Fury said coldly, but it didn't even faze _Bruce. _That's when you know that the shit has hit the fan, when Fury's looks aren't scary to the currently-_not_-green scientist.

"We are—the model's locked and we're searching for its signature now. When we get a hit, we'll have its location within half a mile." Bruce explained, almost lazily gesturing towards a loading screen on the other side of the lab.

Toni sat on the counter, swinging her legs, while Bruce leaned against its edge next to her. He looked quite serious with his arms crossed and his glasses off. She needed to mention this Bruce later, because she was right about Bruce being _awesome_ when he wasn't acting like a wallflower. This was his way of strutting.

"And then you'll get your cube back, no muss, no fuss…" Toni's eyes trailed back to the transparent screen that burst into images in front of her. "Remind me, what is Phase Two?" she asked, daring Fury to clear the air.

Something heavy slammed into the counter, jolting Toni ever so slightly. It was Cap, and he had the same righteous look on his face that Bruce had, gripping a familiar weapon in his gloved hands. Toni glanced up at her screen interestedly; the schematics for the specific HYDRA weapon he brought was conveniently displayed on the monitor.

Huh. For once, they seemed to be on the same page.

"Phase Two is SHIELD using the cube to make weapons." Toni couldn't help but shoot the Captain a bored, indifferent look, to which he bowed his head in acknowledgement. "Sorry, I don't really… _trust computers_ yet," Rogers admitted, glancing at Toni as though there were some deeper meaning to his words.

Toni hoped there wasn't. She didn't know what he was talking about, computers were an integral part of her life.

"Rogers, we gathered everything related to the Tessaract—" Fury swaggered over to the bulky, 20th century tech, placing a hand on it, but Toni interrupted.

"Oh, I'm sorry Nick—" She hopped off the table, and swung around the monitor as she moved, in a moment of surprising fluidity, towards Fury and the Captain. "What—did I interrupt your lies?" she asked him apologetically, holding up the matching schematics to the weapon in his hands.

Fury straightened up, looking at the screen with his one good eye. Beside him, Rogers scowled slightly at Fury in disgust. "I was wrong, Director. The world hasn't changed a bit."

Thor and Agent Ariel came in as Rogers spoke, and Toni hopped back onto the table, grabbing the interactive screen again. Bruce stared at the red head, and pointed to Toni's screen with his glasses, asking, "Did you know about this?"

Toni cut her off, putting in her two cents, "She has the same clearance as her partner, who told Loki about this stuff," Toni pointed out, flipping through more images. "Ergo, yes."

At this point, she didn't even care about Natasha's murder plans anymore.

Toni had suspected this shit, but finding out it was so blatantly true… she was upset, to say the least. If SHIELD had gotten their shit together (or had Stark Industries' support instead of _Oscorp_), an alien invasion would have been a piece of cake, that's how dangerous this stuff was. Too bad it was stolen—_oh. _

_Why didn't I realize that sooner?_ Toni wondered, her eyes inexplicably drawn to Thor for more than just the eye-candy. Her brown eyes flickered back to the files as Romanoff spoke in a heated tone to Bruce about… well, she wasn't paying attention to that.

_Now, when did this start? _Toni looked at the very first file, when Selvig had started his research; just after Thor leveled a small New Mexico town, and flew off into the heavens with his warriors. SHIELD hadn't begun looking into weapons before that; not at this level of intensity.

"I would like to know why SHIELD is building weapons of mass destruction," Bruce stated, gripping the edge of the screen Toni was using.

"Oho! I've got it!" Toni burst into words before Fury could so much as open his mouth. "Because last year an Asgardian came to New Mexico and trashed the place—yeah, I'm talkin' about _you_, sweetheart—and now SHIELD's convinced we need to preemptively arm the Earth against alien invasions." Toni tipped an invisible hat to Thor, who was baffled.

"Me?" Thor asked, but Toni didn't answer. She was waiting for Fury.

And Fury wasn't even mad. He just stared at Toni. With one eye, it was still close enough to a glare that Toni wouldn't meet his gaze for more than five seconds at a time. "At least _someone_ sees our side of it."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Toni protested.

But Fury just sighed in response. "Not only did we learn that we were not alone, but that we are hopelessly, _hilariously_, outgunned."

Toni was already shaking her head, but it was Thor that objected first, saying, "My people want nothing but peace for your planet."

"But you're not the only people out there, are you?" Fury countered, "And, you're not the only threat. The world is filling up with people who can't be matched; who can't be controlled."

"Like you controlled the cube?" Rogers interrupted.

"You work with the Tessaract is what drew Loki to it, and his allies." Thor added, glaring at Fury. "It is a signal to others that Earth is ready for a higher form of war."

"A higher form?" the Captain wondered, but Fury ignored him.

"You forced our hand. We had to come up with something—"

"A nuclear deterrent," Toni piped up condescendingly. "Because that always calms things down," she agreed sarcastically.

"Remind me again how you made your fortune, Stark?" Fury shot back. _Low blow, Patchy._

"I'm sure if Stark still made weapons, she would be neck-deep—" Rogers added, and Toni batted the monitor out of her face to look at them clearly.

"Wait, wait—hold on—how is this now about _me?_" Toni demanded, looking at Rogers in shock. When did he get on the 'hating on Toni Stark' bandwagon? Oh right, probably around the time she started insulting him. Wait! When did she insult him?! _Don't ask, Toni, you insult everyone,_ she reminded herself.

"I'm sorry, isn't everything?" And now he was getting _sassy_ with her! Toni didn't know what to make of Rogers. Weren't they on the same page like half a minute ago? She had actually _appreciated_ him in those few seconds.

"I thought you humans were more evolved than this," Thor said snidely. _What's going on?_ Toni wondered, _Thor was a sad little labrador the last time I spoke to him._ _  
_

Toni snarled at Thor. "At least we don't incinerate towns because of a family dispute," she responded in a scathing tone. _And why am I so mean now? I'm not _that_ angry, but... now I _am _that angry..._ her thoughts were confusing her.

Fury turned on Thor as well, but it wasn't strange for him to start swearing. Since the director seemed to have that covered, Toni was free to switch her attention back to the monitor in lieu of listening to Captain Rogers. It seemed to piss him off, so she continued.

But now Romanoff was arguing with Point Break, who was arguing with Fury, and Bruce had to butt in and argue with Romanoff, and Rogers was yelling something at Toni as well and she really, really, couldn't take it. Completely disregarding whatever Captain America had to say to her, Toni tried to focus.

Soon, all Toni could hear was the powerful hum of Loki's funky scepter, and Steve Rogers being an asshole. "…I've seen the footage, you only fight for yourself—"

Yeah, she couldn't really ignore that.

Toni glared at Rogers through the transparent screen she brought between them. She could see how it was annoying him, so she made it look like she was working on the monitor so he wouldn't push it away. Fuck you if you thought she was childish.

"I've done whole lot more for this world than you can imagine. What've you been doing? Taking a frosty nap." Wait, why was she talking back? It was useless to argue. But she couldn't help it.

"A girl in a suit of armor. Take that off and what are you?"

"I'm a sexy-billionaire-genius-philanthropist. Whereas everything that makes you a hero came out of a _bottle_, Rogers. You're a _lab rat_—"

"I know men with none of that, worth ten of you. You're not the one to make the _sacrifice _play. To lay down on the wire, to let the other guy crawl over you—"

"Yeah, because _I _can cut the wire, right?"

"You know what? Go ahead and suit up if you _really_ want to go a few rounds." Rogers challenged, and Toni rolled her eyes as the Thunder God chuckled deeply.

"You humans are so petty. And tiny." Well, he had her there; even while sitting on the counter, Toni was shorter than Thor, and only just level with the Captain.

"Dude, do you really want to get me started on your domestic problems? Because I can go on _all day_…" Toni began to threaten the alien. She cringed internally as she realized this, because it really wasn't going to help her survive this situation. Again, she just really couldn't help it.

"Agent Romanoff, would you escort Dr. Banner back—"

"To where?" Bruce countered in a heated voice. Whoa, when did that happen? "You rented my room—"

"That was just in case—"

"In case you needed to _kill _me but you _can't_. I _know, _I've _tried_," Bruce explained impatiently, and any hesitance he showed earlier disappeared. Toni's head snapped towards the doctor in surprise, and she forgot all about Asshole Rogers and the God of Blunder for a moment.

Bruce was backing up, and all Toni heard was his voice and the loud hum from the scepter. "Banner?" she asked quietly, but he didn't hear her.

His eyes flickered around wildly, but Bruce still looked in control. "I got low," he told them, "I didn't see an end, so I put a bullet in my mouth and the Other Guy spit it out. So I moved on. I focused on helping other people, I was good, until you dragged me back into this freak show," Bruce laid his hand on the tabletop, but he didn't seem to acknowledge how close he was to that scepter.

"_Bruce_," Toni said louder, but he went on.

"You put everyone here at risk—you want to know my secret, Toni?" He was suddenly looking straight at her, and Toni was bewildered by his intensity. "You want to know how I stay calm?"

"Maybe, uh, you should put down the scepter first?" she asked softly, looking at Bruce with the most serious expression she could muster.

It seemed to break whatever roll he was on. In fact, it seemed to destroy all the tension in the room because everyone seemed to realize just how uncharacteristic it was for _Bruce Banner_ to... rant. And the good doctor himself looked wholly surprised at the scepter in his fist.

He lowered it back onto the table. There was a beeping from across the room, from the device that was locating the Tessaract through its energy signature. Toni slipped off the counter but Bruce just brushed past her, muttering about his party trick in a bitter tone.

Bruce squinted at the screen, and gaped. "Oh my god—"

And then the whole place was filled with heat, metal, and brilliant yellow-white flames.

* * *

**So, do you understand the title of this chapter? It helps clear up why there's such a difference between Toni's previous experience with the team and this scene in the movie, where everyone's just fighting. The scepter! I don't think I realized that when I watched the movie, I just thought everyone really hated each other. But I'm pretty sure this is the reasoning that the movies went for; it just makes more sense now because you can see what Toni's really thinking.**

****I WILL GO BEYOND THE AVENGERS MOVIE. Definitely into IM3, and possibly into Thor: The Dark World because I really loved it and Jane needs to be re-written because she was such a loser in the movie. I intend to get through the Avengers, and then at LEAST IM3 before the Captain America movie comes out in May, because I would love to continue (if possible) with Toni in that movie too :)**

**To my reviewers (in chronological order, if anyone was wondering):**

**Ranger Belle: It's ok, I appreciate your zeal.**

**BatfamilyFan01: Well, I'm glad you liked the Toni-Thor interaction! But it really was just meant to give them more team-bonding time, because there's NOTHING in the movie between Tony and Thor. **

**Caitlin Sidhe: I don't know enough about Deadpool to bring him in, but I can try to give him a cameo or two once I get to IM3 and/or Thor 2.**

**Blacksash: Haha, glad you liked the chapter! And I hope the tone of this chapter doesn't seem odd next to last chapter - I know, Toni's not acting the way she was with Natasha earlier, but then again, nobody's acting normal around the scepter. **

**Fyby: Did you see my little Spider-Man reference?! It was there, and I'm actually really excited over my own allusion to the Spider-Man storyline. Yeah, he'll be around soon enough.**

**Vaughn Tyler: Glad you liked the chapter, wish you used more than one syllable to describe it though! But hey, a review's a review. **

**ramblingrambler: I liked your analogy to your labrador. I included it (sorta) in this chapter because I thought it was funny :) BTW I keep reading your username as Ramblin' Grambler for some reason. Just thought you ought to know.**

** .Emily: Yay, another Stoni fan! Ooh, you'll love the last chapter I'm working on regarding the Battle of NY. Sooo many feels! But it's not finished, and there's a few more chapters between this chapter and the Battle of NY.**

**Kup of Koko: I HAVE decided to keep going. I haven't finished writing all of the Avengers movie stuff, but I really want to go into IM3 AND Thor 2 since I just saw it and loved most of it (ergo, I want to write my own version to remedy what I saw as mistakes in the film). **

**xXGuardianHeartXx: I'm glad you found this story, and that I've changed your mind about fem!Tony Stark! Eeeeeeee this makes me so happy. Thank you for reviewing - As stated earlier, I AM going beyond the Avengers movie :)**

**KEEP REVIEWING! I LOVE YOU ALL 3**


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